CT Examiner: Speaker Ritter Sketches Out Legislative Agenda
Addressing juvenile crime through increased mental health services, negotiating expiring state employee contracts and trying to fully re-open the Capitol to the public are among the top priorities Democratic House Speaker Matthew Ritter has set for the upcoming legislative session.
Ritter says a shortage of mental health services for young people is a major obstacle toward making inroads on a widespread uptick of crimes being committed by young people.
“This dovetails with the issues we’re seeing with juvenile justice,” Ritter, a legislator representing Hartford since 2010 and elected Speaker last year, told CT Examiner on Wednesday. “A lot of these issues stem from mental health and traumatic experiences,” of teenagers. “The intervention has to be there.”
Democrats will be piecing together a bill to fund an array of strategies, he said, including increased use of telemedicine visits between teens and mental health professionals, as well as establishing incentives to try to attract more people into a field that is chronically understaffed.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently declared the situation as a crisis…read full story here.