On the January evening, when the inspector introduced the staff at Generations Family Health Center, the nonprofit health group that would provide services at the school, visitors looked out of Zoom screens with cheerful smiles.
The plan was to have certified Generations therapists work in a room on the third floor of the school. Students can be referred by teachers or family members, or can come on their own, and therapy sessions are scheduled during school hours. Therapists would bill the insurance on a sliding scale, if necessary with federal funds, so that there would be no cost to the school and little or no cost to the families.
Then a chill entered the room as the board members began to sift through them with questions. The smiles of the visitors disappeared.
Would they advise students on birth control or abortion? (They wouldn’t give medical advice, but could discuss it if it arises.) If children were referred and didn’t want therapy, would they be forced to do it? (No.) Would students be seen by peers entering treatment, exposing them to ridicule and stigmatization? (Hopefully not.) Could they get therapy without their parents knowing?
Conceivable, yes, was the answer. Under the law, Connecticut clinicians can, under limited circumstances, provide six sessions of mental health treatment to minors without parental consent – if the minor sought treatment, it was deemed clinically necessary and requiring parental notice would prevent the minor from receiving it .
This provision is rarely used; in the nearby town of Putnam, which has been home to a school mental health clinic for nine years treating hundreds of students, no child has ever been treated without parental consent, said Michael Morrill, a Putnam school board member.
But it was a major sticking point for Norm Ferron, one of Killingly’s board members, who said the arrangement “would give a student a lot more access to counseling without parental consent, and I’m not really excited about that.”