‘ Pride’ system funded by$ 1.2 million federal offer
A University of Arizona “pride” system is facing criticism for supposedly working with a neighborhood school area to get adolescents to attend LGBTQ+ mental wellness checks without their parents ‘ permission.
The accusations against the Family Pride Initiative’s Realize program come from a popular post on X by @ALegalProcess, which claims the Catalina Foothills School District and the school” surreptitiously” contacted adolescents for mental wellness checks and procedures related to LGBTQ+ problems.
The school and a number of health maintenance organizations collaborate on the” Family Pride Initiative.” It aims to “reduce cognitive health disparities and improve outcomes for LGBTQ+ children by strengthening supports for children, caregivers, people, and the companies who serve them”, according to its site.
However, the local school district allegedly sent minor students via Google Classroom an invitation to attend an AFFIRM Zoom meeting, according to the X post.
Without obtaining parental consent, Arizona law prohibits the covert solicitation of minors for mental health screenings and treatment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer programs.
*PARENT KICKED OUT WHEN… pic. twitter.com/jtDS4OelE6— TheLegalProcess (v2.0| Post-Election Ed ) ( @ALegalProcess ) June 9, 2024
According to a YouTube video produced by Save CFSD, a group of parents who support “virtue and academic excellence” in the school district, parent Dan Grossenbach claimed he had joined one of the Zoom sessions after seeing the email to his child.
Grossenbach said he was removed from the meeting by the program’s director, Shannon Fowler, who told him the session was designated as a” safe space” exclusively for minors.
A student was authorized to attend the meeting, according to Mitch Zak, a University of Arizona spokesperson, in an earlier email to The College Fix.
Zak claimed that the parent allegedly signed his child up for the AFFIRM workshop series after giving his consent in one of the social media posts, and then walked away from the youth workshop.
Zak claimed that protecting young people from adults who should n’t be in the workshops is essential to keeping them safe. These adults, he claimed, have not received the required training to facilitate the workshops and have not gone through a background check in accordance with UA policy governing interactions with minors who have not enrolled.
However, Grossenbach recently addressed The Fix with a list of serious concerns about the program.
With the exception of rare cases like abuse or abandonment, he said,” It’s inappropriate for behavioral health screening of minors without parental consent.”
According to Grossenbach, children are unable to make informed decisions on their own, a rule that is reflected in federal laws governing counseling and healthcare.
” Parents are a child’s best shot at surviving and flourishing”, he said. ” Any procedure that obstructs or circumvents that protection harms the child for whom informed consent is not possible.”
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He also said keeping a child’s sexual identity hidden from “bad parents” is generally not justified, and such claims require sound moral arguments and objective standards.
According to Grossenbach,” they must demonstrate what objective standard establishes a relevant moral rule” when a person claims non-conforming gender affirmation is morally good or even acceptable.
He objected to the claim that the program is devoted to mental health. There are contradictions between the program’s stated goal of using cognitive behavioral therapy to assist young people and its approach to gender identity, according to Grossenbach.
He claimed that CBT’s objective objective of a person’s identity in place of biological reality is directly opposed to their goal.
He added that the program’s presenters lacked professional credentials in terms of mental health.
The AFFIRM program is funded by a$ 1.2 million federal grant to the university’s Southwest Institute for Research on Women Family Pride Initiative, a news release states. This initiative offers training programs for LGBTQ+ youth as well as mental health services.
The Family Pride Initiative, according to Fowler, the program’s director, “aims to address a common misunderstanding between LGBTQ+ youth and young adults… that family members may reject because of their sexual or gender identity.” Some become separated from their families or homeless, according to the release.
” There was n’t really anything to help families before they get to that point”, Fowler said. Instead of going through all of those things, we are focusing on the preventative side of helping families and youth in their circumstances.
According to Fowler, the grant money will be used to reach” 120 youth and 50 family caregivers annually for the next three years.”
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IMAGE: Family Pride Initiative website
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