Small town in Connecticut resists in-school mental health clinic

Ellen Barry reports for the New York Times under the headline, "A Mental Health Clinic in School? No, Thanks, Says the School Board."  The subhead is, "American teenagers are reporting severe levels of anxiety and depression. But when Connecticut moved to expand mental health services in schools, it ran into fierce opposition in one town."  

It's not clear what work the "small town" descriptor is doing in this story.  It may be playing on the stereo-type of small-town or rural ignorance, or it may just be incidental.  

Here's an excerpt:  

Killingly, with a population of around 18,000, is a blue-collar, predominantly white former mill town, where, for decades, substance abuse and suicide were topics addressed by priests or pastors, if they were addressed at all. That approach has failed older generations, said Alyssah Yater, 17, another senior who has advocated in favor of the clinic.

“People like to say that kids these days are so sensitive, but I think the older generations struggled with mental illness but they didn’t get help,” she said. “I think that’s really dangerous. If you try to ignore it, or tell someone to shove it down, then one day, they’re just going to snap.”

At the school newspaper, Ms. Zicolella [a student who favored the clinic, though her mother opposed it] conducted a poll, and found that the clinic enjoyed nearly universal support. She was pleasantly surprised to see which students showed up at the protest on the issue, because they seemed to range across the political spectrum.

With summer around the corner, the community was at a stalemate, with both sides waiting for the state to weigh in.

Advocates of the clinic have argued that Killingly’s needs are “especially extreme,” and that its board has persistently rejected additional services, imposing “its own extreme political views in a way that undermines the educational interest of the State.”