Aug 11, 2019, Daytona Beach (FL) News-Journal: Baker Acts soar for autistic students in Volusia County https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20190811/baker-acts-soar-for-autistic-students-in-volusia-county …Nate isn’t the only child with autism to be temporarily detained for involuntary psychological evaluation because authorities fear they could do harm to themselves or others. The number of children with autism in Volusia County who are Baker Acted is soaring, up 500% over four years, even though experts in the fields of mental health, education and law enforcement all say holding a child with autism for an involuntary evaluation will almost never help that child overcome whatever behaviors they’re exhibiting. But when they don’t know what else to do, parents and law enforcement officers admit they turn to the Baker Act when dealing with sometimes explosive behaviors from these children. It can be even worse for educators who aren’t thoroughly trained to help students manage their behaviors. Parents of children with autism fear schools have become overly reliant on using the Baker Act with troubled children, including those with autism. Hospital officials agree that’s a possibility, but until recently no one was tracking how many times schools call on law enforcement to use the Baker Act to take children for a mental evaluation. With the U.S. Department of Justice investigating the Volusia school district for alleged discrimination against students with autism, The News-Journal spent four months delving into questions about the support services these children are legally entitled to receive. Among the newspaper’s findings: Because of a lack of training, staffing and funding, school personnel struggle to help children with autism succeed when they are included in general education classrooms…. But some parents of children with autism enrolled in Volusia schools complained to the DOJ because they felt educators were using the Baker Act as a way to get disorderly students out of the classroom. Nationally, the number of children with autism doubled over the past 10 years, but in Volusia County school system the number has more than tripled. Last year the district enrolled 1,122 students with autism among an overall student population of 63,000. Researchers can’t explain why there’s been an increase in the number of children with autism, and local officials can’t explain why the number of those children who’ve been Baker Acted has increased even more. Last year 115 children with autism in Volusia County were taken under the Baker Act to Halifax Health — the only Baker Act intake facility for minors in Volusia, Flagler, St. Johns and Putnam counties. That represents a 37% increase over the previous year and is six times higher than the 19 children with autism who were Baker Acted four years earlier. …. But law enforcement officers have little recourse in situations where they’re called to respond to a child with autism having a crisis, other than to take them to Halifax Health under the Baker Act or arrest them. More experienced officers might take the time to help de-escalate the situation, but it’s not always possible. … Weaver said it’s hard to make the right decisions regarding run-ins with children with autism, made even worse by the lack of resources for them. “We don’t have a system set up to deal with children with autism,” Weaver said. “When they do have a meltdown and law enforcement gets called, sometimes we make the right choice. Sometimes we don’t.” Educators don’t have it any easier. In Volusia, one-third of the school district’s vacancies in July were for teachers certified in exceptional student education, and teachers are not required to complete any specific training before working with students with autism. … Jasmine Harper’s 12-year-old son Jordan, who’s on the autism spectrum, faced repeated Baker Acts from his elementary school after they suspended him 10 times. After reaching the 10-suspension threshold, the school started calling the police, Harper said, when Jordan was being mouthy in class, having meltdowns when confronted by school authority figures and running away from the school — all of which were manifestations of his disability…. Frequent Baker Acts are part of the reason parents like Harper went to Katie Kelly, a civil rights attorney with Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida. Kelly filed a complaint with the DOJ alleging multiple forms of discrimination, including the overuse of the Baker Act as an improper means of disciplining students with disabilities. … Dawn Starr, a parent advocate in Volusia County whom families hire to help them get the services they’re legally entitled to from the school district, said many of her clients are afraid of their children with autism being Baker Acted from their schools. “Administrators will threaten parents with a Baker Act if they start questioning too much. Then they expect the parents to be grateful that they didn’t do that,” she said. …
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Loss of Brain Trust features over 9,000 news stories published worldwide since January, 2017
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
CHECK OUT MY SUBSTACK:
https://annedachel.substack.com/
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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