Drew Ferguson: “I thank my colleague from Virginia for yielding. Madam Speaker, while I do, in fact, support his amendment, I would also…”

“I thank my colleague from Virginia for yielding. Madam Speaker, while I do, in fact, support his amendment, I would also like to speak for just a minute on the previous amendment offered to H.R. 7666, the BIG Act. We have seen over the past couple of years a significant rise in mental health issues with our students, whether it is in high school, whether it is in middle school, or whether it is in college. We have seen the effects of the pandemic, but there are a lot of other things that have created this mental health crisis for our children around America. What our children need are resources, and they need resources at a very early age. So what the BIG Act does is it accumulates best practices from different schools around the country, and it makes sure that we intervene with students early. We want to get these young people the resources that they need. {time} 1600 There are a couple of things about this that we think are very important: Number one, early intervention has been proven to show that we can prevent a catastrophic event. We want students to be healthy and happy and functioning. What we would also like to do is limit the interaction with law enforcement. We want to make sure that the students are getting these resources across the board. So this body passed the BIG Act last year, and they did it with wide bipartisan support; however, the Senate did not take this bill up. So I say, let's do it again.…”