By Jeremy Pittari, Magnolia Tribune
Rep. Samuel Creekmore (R), seen here during a Public Health and Human Services Committee hearing, introduced a bill that would create create the Behavioral Threat Assessment Program. The program would provide training to all schools that would allow them to identify and respond to potential mental health related threats on campus. (Photo by Jeremy Pittari | Magnolia Tribune)
Several bills passed out of the House Education Committee last week that focused on the mental health of Mississippi’s students.
One of the bills passed Wednesday was HB 1578. It directs public school districts to establish policies that protect students from acts of dating violence. It also tasks schools with educating children about how social media can be used by predators to prey on them.
“One example, they would catfish a child. The child would send a picture, that picture would be used to basically harm that child and tell him that they will send it to their parent,” Education Committee Chair State Rep. Rob Roberson (R) explained. “A lot of these kids, they’re just naive, they have no idea anybody would do something like this.”
The purpose of the bill is to give administrators and teachers the tools they need to educate young people on the dangers of dating violence as well as the confidence to share any such interaction with a parent, guardian or teacher.
“In my own neck of the woods, we had a young man that rather than go to his father, rather than go to his mother, rather than go to a teacher, he harmed himself,” Roberson said. “And all of his tomorrows were taken away, and his parents’ dreams were taken away.”
On Thursday, the House committee passed 1132, a bill that aims to create the Behavioral Threat Assessment Program. It is designed to identify individuals who may be in crisis and provide intervention.
State Rep. Samuel Creekmore (R) said the bill would create a threat system for districts statewide that will be run in conjunction with the state Department of Education and Department of Mental Health.
The threat system would be built using the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Schools across the state would also be tasked with having a threat assessment team on campus, with training provided by the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security.
Through the program, students could be connected to mental health services such as a mobile crisis intervention team when a crisis is identified. Team members and teachers would be trained to identify behaviors of concern and how to review social media posts for signs of a threat. Rep. Creekmore said that 45 other states in the nation already have similar systems in place.
“This just brings us up to federal guidelines that identifies threats,” Creekmore told the committee.
The plan outlined in the bill was drafted with input from the Department of Education and the Department of Mental Health.
The committee also passed HB 1463, referred to as the Youth Mental Health Access for All Act. It would create a tele-therapy pilot project that would be accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
State Rep. Kent McCarty (R) explained that the bill does not replace school counselors but rather provides students with easy to access supplemental mental health care.
“The need of this has increased exponentially in the last few years,” McCarthy described. “And we’ve all seen far, far too many stories of students that were in crisis that did not, for whatever reason, did not have anyone to talk to and if we had this it would address that.”
All three measures will now to placed on the House floor calendar for consideration this week.