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Affiliation
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staff attorney, North Carolina General Assembly, Legislative Analysis Division, Raleigh, North Carolina Jason.moran-bates@ncleg.net. |
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Abstract
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In 2019, the North Carolina General Assembly considered several bills addressing youth suicide. Two of these measures were recommended by the House Select Committee on School Safety; two other bills were introduced independently.
House Select Committee on School Safety
On February 20, 2018, the North Carolina House of Representatives created the House Select Committee on School Safety. The committee and its subcommittees met several times in Raleigh and other locations throughout the state. In its final report to the General Assembly, the committee made two recommendations related to youth suicide. The first recommendation was to conduct a study to develop a “state-wide system for mental health screening” meant to identify students who were at “risk of harming themselves or others” [1]. The second recommendation was that school safety grants for “services for students in crisis” be expanded in the 2019-20 fiscal year [1]. These two recommendations were accompanied by draft legislation that was introduced in the 2019 Session of the General Assembly as House Bill 75 and House Bill 74, respectively [1].
Legislation Introduced by the House Select Committee
As originally introduced, House Bill 75 would have required the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Public Instruction to undertake a study to recommend parameters for a mental health screening process for school-age children [2]. The ultimate goal of the screening process would have been to identify children at risk of harming themselves or others [2]. The study was to examine whether such a screening process should be required, and, if so, which medical professionals should conduct the screen; what behaviors or mental health diagnoses should be targeted in the screening process; the optimal age to implement the screen; and what interventions to take with children identified as being at risk as a result of the screen [2]. House Bill 75 was approved unanimously on the floor of the House of Representatives, but it stalled in the Senate [3]. The mental health screen study portion of the bill was removed by the Senate Appropriations Committee and replaced with the contents of what had been House Bill 74, a discussion of which follows [3]. It is unlikely that the mental health screen study will be taken up again in the 2020 Session of the General Assembly ...
Language: en |