Senate Bill 327, “An Act Establishing A Task Force To Study The Effects Of Hate Speech On Children’s Health And Achievement,” if passed, would study the effects of hate speech on the mental and physical health as well as educational achievement of children. Under the bill, “hate speech” means forms of expression where a speak intends to vilify, humiliate or incite hatred against a group or class of persons on basis of race, religion, skin color, sexual or gender identity, ethnicity, disability or national origin. It will also focus on body positivity.

The task force created by the bill would include a representative of an organization focused on behavioral health and well-being of children, a pediatric care provider, members of organizations seeking to end discrimination and representatives from a number of Connecticut departments. Findings would be reported to the General Assembly by the start of 2025.

This bill received significant positive testimony supporting its ideals, including TEAM Westport, which reported feedback from several students and graduates from Westport schools where they experienced discrimination and bias in school culture. In recent weeks, discussion of racism and other discrimination has impacted the Westport community, which has rallied in support of those facing such treatment. Multiple Westport parents also testified, citing experiences their children faced in schools.

Additional supportive testimony included remarks from John Flanders and Andrew Feinstein, the President and Legislative Chair, respectively, of Special Education Equity for Kids of Connecticut, or SEEK, which works to support students with disabilities. Both said students with disabilities who experience discrimination or hate speech internalize and are stigmatized by the experience. “Hate speech not only has a seriously negative impact on children, it undermines the basic support for civil society,” said Flanders.

Dr. Tichianaa Armah, the President of the Connecticut Psychiatric Society, chief psychiatry officer at Community Health Center, Inc., and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, testified and said it was “incredible” to notice a “stark change” in treating children after they entered school and faced racism. “They were experiencing a great deal of racism and daily microaggressions,” Armah said, and that had a direct impact on their lives. “It’s really easy to focus on anything but race because it’s challenging to talk about,” she said, “but racial discrimination, use of racial slurs, not just use verbally but in text, really needs to be addressed.”

Nicholas Kapoor, the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, also testified in support of the bill, hoping such a task force can lead to effective mitigation strategies to support children in the future. He said in his past experience as a Monroe Board of Education member, a survey of students on bullying revealed as many as 15% of students did not feel safe in school bathrooms and nearly 20% of students identified as LGBTQ+, implying inherent risks to student safety.

Today, the Committee on Children and State Senator Ceci Maher (D-Wilton), Senate Chair of the committee, held a public hearing on proposed legislation including Senate Bill 217, “An Act Implementing A Universal Patient Intake Form For Recipients Of Behavioral Health Services For Children,” a priority bill for Sen. Maher in this year’s legislative session. Among the testimony they heard were comments by Ridgefield’s Alisa Trachtenberg, who last year met with Sen. Maher to discuss this issue. If passed, this bill would aid families with children experiencing mental or behavioral health crisis.

Senate Bill 217 would create a working group to study the idea of developing a universal patient intake form for patients of behavioral health service providers by their parents or caregivers. The working group would study the potential of creating one comprehensive form to collect patient health and medical history, conditions and concerns for which treatment is being sought and any other questions that could provide crucial information to health services. Upon the completion of this task force by the end of 2024, as the bill is currently written, such a form would be implemented beginning in July 2025.

Trachtenberg, the founder of Ridgefield CT Pride, testified that her child has received behavioral health services for much of their life and has experienced “how burdensome and inefficient the intake procedure is,” with “mounds of repetitive paperwork” and agencies unable to transfer basic information between intakes. She said that getting children the help they need should not be as difficult as it is today, but a universal intake form would streamline the application process and relieve stress from already-stressed parents and guardians, speeding up critical services in the process.

The proposed legislation came together through Sen. Maher‘s desire to help families whose children are experiencing crisis, already a challenging time, by reducing the stress and distraction that different organizations’ disparate paperwork causes. A universal form that provides needed information quicker and connects patients with care, allowing parents to focus on supporting and caring for their children, would prevent gaps in care and support families in their time of need.

Additional testimony in support of Senate Bill 217 included the National Alliance on Mental Illness Connecticut, which argued that “streamlining the process for parents looking to receive behavioral health services for children is simply basic common sense for both the parents as well as the providers.”

Jaime Rodriguez, the advocacy chair for the Connecticut Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, also testified in support of the legislation, noting that developing such a form “will ease the beginning stage of care for provider, patient and family,” noting it would expand consistency of patient information through clear documentation and collaboration between all mental health providers involved in a child’s treatment over time.