Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this amendment is for infant and early childhood mental health promotion, intervention, and treatment. It provides $5 million in grants to develop, maintain, or enhance infant and early childhood mental health promotion, intervention, and treatment programs, including programs for infants and children at significant risk of developing or showing early signs of or having been diagnosed with mental illness, including serious emotional disturbance. This was passed and authorized in the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act last year in Congress in which it was passed 422-2--near unanimous. The importance of this is that, across the United States, up to one in five children suffers from a mental disorder in a given year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This equates to more than 17 million young people who meet criteria for disorders that affect their ability to learn, behave, and express emotions. This small $5 million amount is about 29 cents per child, hardly enough to do much when distributed over that many, but it can do a great deal when distributed for a few. If you follow the course of children with mental illness, untreated mental illness, of course, leads to very troubled adults and other problems. I might add that this is National Suicide Prevention Week, and among children, suicide rates are climbing. In fact, over the last 20 years, suicide rates have climbed overall in this country.…”