Libertycoalition
January 30, 2007
The goal of TeenScreen, the very controversial child screening program, is to do a mental suicide screening of every U.S. child before they graduate from high school. According to their website, they utilize screening instruments called the Diagnostic Predictive Scales (DPS) and the Columbia Health Screen (CHS).
Children as young as 9 years old are asked to answer the DPS or CHS questions. Afterwards, summary forms are then filled out by a clinician. TeenScreen's high false positive rate has many schools and parents alarmed that normal children will be labeled with mental disorders. For example the San Francisco Chronicle has just reported that "Local public schools have resisted TeenScreen. San Francisco Unified School District, for example, passed on TeenScreen because it can generate false positives and drain counseling resources. Other critics worry TeenScreen could send kids unnecessarily into treatment and land too many on psychiatric drugs."
Certainly pharmaceutical companies will benefit from mass screening of our children.
Below you can find links to all 4 documents: The DPS, DPS Summary Form, the CHS and the CHS Summary Form
The documents are being made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of the ramifications of mass mental screening as related to human rights, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. This material is distributed without profit.
The Washington Post reported in an article entitled Suicide-Risk Tests for Teens Debated on June 16, 2006. "Shaffer said the screening test he developed is now in the public domain".
Shaffer, is the psychiatrist who invented TeenScreen.
Video on TeenScreen Controversy
Attachment Size
CHS - Summary Form.pdf 198.7 KB
chs.pdf 423.47 KB
DPS -
Summary Form.pdf 502.32 KB
DPS.pdf 354.69 KB
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