(Cheyenne, WY) – The Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Education Committee narrowly defeated a legislative proposal to fund additional mental health services in K-12 schools last month.
Wyoming Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, says he now plans to sponsor the bill himself, along with several potential co-sponsors.
Project AWARE
Larsen presented the bill draft to the Education Committee last month in his capacity as co-chair of the legislature’s Mental Health and Vulnerable Adult Task Force.
The legislation would create and fund “a program to address the mental health needs of K-12 public school students, to be administered by the department of education,” the bill draft states.
The program is called Project AWARE, Larsen said, and it has already been successfully implemented in 14 school districts throughout the state – including in Lander.
Project AWARE helps school districts “bridge the gap between education and healthcare” by identifying students experiencing mental health problems then referring those students to treatment when needed – all in collaboration with their parents or guardians, Wyoming Project AWARE Director Dustin Brown told the committee last month.
The bill includes funding for a “community project manager” for each Project AWARE district, and Brown said those new positions would “work specifically to build those bridges” between students and families and healthcare providers – include telehealth providers when necessary.
“That’s the importance of this AWARE program,” Larsen said. “We’ve got this coordinator in the district that can help find services that are available. …
“That coordinator position is really critical, because there is not an overabundance of mental health providers in the state of Wyoming, or nationwide.”
Parental consent
When asked for more information about parental involvement in Project AWARE, Brown said “the process starts with parental consent just to refer to the external provider, and then once we go to the external provider, that consent is confirmed a second time to identify that it is the right choice.”
After that, he said “the discussion on the treatment plan … will include parents” as well.
But several lawmakers pointed out that there was no mention of parental consent in the bill draft, so they made a motion to amend the proposed legislation to include that kind of language.
“The bill needs to include that clarity, (that) all of those things would happen with parental involvement and consent,” Wyoming Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland, said before making the motion.
Other committee members pushed back on Lawley’s motion to amend the bill, however, noting that the legislature already passed a law earlier this year requiring school districts to “notify a student’s parent or guardian as soon as practicable if there is a change in the student’s educational, physical, mental, or emotional health or well-being.”
“Do we not trust that we did the work beforehand?” Wyoming Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, asked.
Provenza and others also noted that Project AWARE already requires parental consent, but Lawley replied that “parents have experienced programs in education that started one way and ended up another way.”
Lawley said her amendment would provide “assurance” to those parents and guardians that, “whatever we’re doing in the area of mental health, we’re acknowledging the proper place to decide and direct those issues.”
“Why not assure parents … to just give them that comfort?” she asked. “What harm does it do to add it?”
The committee voted not to pass Lawley’s amendment.
The original bill was then defeated in a 6-6 vote.
Larsen said the bill he plans to sponsor during the upcoming legislative session will include language requiring parental consent.