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Any parent would be appalled to learn their child was taken out of the classroom for a mandatory mental health evaluation without their knowledge or consent. But such is the case in Florida where more than 3 out or every 1000 children, on average will be involuntarily committed for psychiatric examination.

Kids Committed to Psychiatric Evaluation; No Parental Consent 3,365 separate involuntary commitments were performed, in 2007 directly from school grounds. Over 3000 separate incidences of children being escorted, mandatorily, from school to a psychiatric receiving facility and held in a secured ward, separate from their parents, and without their parents consent in one year.

What could possibly justify an average of 52 statewide mental health commitments, of children, to facilities per day? This includes children taken from school, from the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Department of Children and Families!

Just to fully clarify what age is considered a child, 4 years old up to 17 years old. Children younger than 4 years old are not considered to be involuntarily committed under the Baker Act.

The Florida Mental Health Act (The Baker Act) Report for 2007, states that "some people have many involuntary exams, with 18% of people with two or more in 2007". (The 2008 report will not be available until 2010).

Crazy, nuts, psycho, are but a few of the terms that have been used for centuries to describe an individual who doesn't conform to the "norm" by society's standards. Psychiatrists would have us believe that our children fit those terms! The diagnosing of children with non-scientific psychiatric disorders has led to a point at which children, who do not "behave" properly or normally in school, will be involuntarily committed under the Baker Act.

At the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida, a non-profit mental health watchdog organization, we continue to get calls from distraught parents who have just found out their child was removed from school and placed in a psychiatric ward. Some of the "reasons" for these Baker Acts would simply astonish Floridians. For instance, an eight year old boy who stomped on an administrator's foot; an eleven year old who had a fist fight with his cousin in the playground; a straight "A" student who skipped class and got subject to a mental health questionnaire that, when evaluated, deemed she was a potential risk to herself.

The Baker Act report for 2007 concluded that "of 1,000 people aged four and over in the population, 4.44 of them had at least one involuntary examination in Florida in the calendar year 2007, 3.49 out of 1,000 children (4 though 17)". So, 3 out of every 1000 Florida children, on an average, will have an involuntary commitment!

Parents have the right to be informed; to understand that due to the intervention programs within schools, your child will be evaluated and observed and if a psychologist or school personnel or even another child (who then reports their observations to a school psychologist), deems that your child is a behavioral risk, a potential risk to themselves or others, they are liable to the Baker Act.

The peculiar and troubling aspect of involuntary commitment is that if a person does, in fact, pose a threat to himself or others, what are you or anyone else to do with them? Maxine Baker, the legislator who presented this mental health act and saw to its enactment, did not have in mind that the scope of this act be used to "discipline" children.

Like many other issues in the field of mental health, such as the use of psychotropic drugs, the use of the drugs as "Off-Label", Electro-convulsive therapy, mental health screening, etcetera, we are currently at a point in our culture where we best be educated about our rights. Individuals and parents will do well to understand the facts about these "treatments" and programs so that they do not find themselves caught up in a nightmare such as a 72 hour hold on their child within a high-security psychiatric ward.

The answers are there for the public! We do have the right to contact our legislators and let them know about our concerns. How far will things need to go before they change for the better? Only we can answer that question. Each and every one of us!