Assembly Member Wendy Carrillo championed the bill, citing the need to expand mental health services for young people, while Erin Friday, attorney and co-founder of parent group Our Duty, called it “state-sanctioned kidnapping.”
According to Carrillo, there is a mental health crisis in our communities. The current Family Code 6924, enacted in 2010 by former Governor Schwarzenegger, only permits mental health counseling for children aged 12 and over with an allegation of abuse or a risk of serious harm. However, CDC statistics show that in the years since the law was enforced, the suicide rate for 10- to 14-year-olds has risen. “Instead of repealing the failed law, the response is to place even more power in the hands of counselors, to remove children from their loving families,” said Friday.
March 30, 2023
Friday then cited a specific example of the caliber of counselor to whom such power would be given: Kenna Cook, a “pansexual, kink and polyamory-friendly, fierce femme and sex-positive parent” who works at CommuniCare Health Centers. Cook is also responsible for the Free Binder Project, which provides dangerous chest compression devices to girls aged 12-26 in the Yolo County region. “Twelve is the age that California can steal the rights of parents and hand over mental health decisions to a child, or worse, a pervert,” Friday concluded.
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In response to these criticisms, Carrillo emphasized the need to “shift the stigma” around mental health and improve the access to services for young people using Medicaid. She argued that therapists and the government are better placed than parents to deal with difficulties in children's lives. Friday, however, argued that the bill goes much further than just expanding Medicaid coverage. She stated that it greatly expands the power of a counselor with regard to residential facilities, allowing them to place a child in a facility away from their parents without any claim of abuse or indication that the child is in danger.
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In a statement to The Post Millennial, Friday said she was “extremely disturbed” by Carrillo’s suggestion that the bill had bipartisan support ten years ago. “The democrats tried and failed ten years ago to pass a bill that gave mental health counselors power to send a child to a residential facility without a claim of abuse or serious harm to the child,” she said. “I truly believe that the democrats knew exactly what they were doing, hiding under the cloak of equity to further trample on parental rights.”
Despite the opposition, the committee voted 7-2 in favor of the bill.
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