Unburdened by false humility, postmodern trauma activists claim to have understood for the first time what drives all of human suffering
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CATEGORY: GOVERNMENT PROJECTS  Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) Source: Congress.gov Read time: 2.1 minutes This Happened On August 15, 2024, the text of a bill was made public that would amend an existing law to extend federal funding for trauma-informed programming in schools for five more years. Who Did This? The bill was sponsored by Jahana Hayes (D-CT). She was a public school teacher for fifteen years. Hayes was elected to her first term in Congress in 2019. She was a cosponsor of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal in 2019 proposing a goal of 100% renewable energy; she introduced resolutions in Congress in 2020, 2023, and 2024 to declare racism a public health crisis; and she advocates for Israel to accept a cease fire deal with Hamas. The Premise HR 8981, the Supporting Trauma-Informed Education Practices Act, proposes to amend the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, which was passed in 2018 to stem the opioid drug crisis. The 2018 law created a sprawling set of new regulations that includes Medicaid and Medicare insurance coverage, FDA regulation, pharmacist duties, opioid addiction supports, workforce expansion, and public health education. Funding for trauma-informed care in schools was folded into the public health section of the law on the presumption that trauma was a driving force of substance abuse. It authorized $50 million per year for five years to fund grants to local agencies to implement the following:
The funding for the trauma-informed care component was time-limited, originally authorized only for 2019 through 2023. The 2024 amendment seeks to re-authorize that for 2025 through 2029. It also adds a new mandate to provide mental health services to teachers and other school staff. Hayes introduced the same legislation in 2022 but it was not voted on. Analysis Studies show that many individuals who abuse substances have experienced childhood traumas, but these data come from cross-sectional studies that cannot determine causation. While some vulnerable individuals who experience trauma may escalate their use of substances, blaming substance abuse on trauma may be overly simplistic. Providing public education about trauma sounds innocent on face value, but as other posts showed (here and here), trauma-informed philosophy is a pandora’s box of ideology that ranges far beyond research evidence. It teaches people that they are highly vulnerable to brain damage and lifelong physical illness if they experience trauma, when the truth is that most people have no enduring symptoms following trauma. Trauma-informed trainings are focused on creating a cultural shift in how people think about human nature as nearly defenseless to oppressive experiences. The amendment mischaracterized the status of these issues by labeling the program “evidence-based” six times. Why Is This Happening? The 2018 law that created the original trauma-informed component was sponsored by a Republican representative and co-sponsored by ten Republicans and six Democrats, and it was approved by a majority of both parties. This was unusual since trauma-informed bills are typically offered by Democrats because the ideology is in harmony with the progressive leftist vision of human nature and an agenda to expand government entitlement programs. It seems likely that the national concern about the massive opioid epidemic in the United States lowered Republicans concerns about including the trauma-informed component as a relatively small part of the law. As the epidemic has dragged on, however, under a Democrat president, Republican support for the component has disappeared. The 2024 amendment is sponsored exclusively by Democrats, failed once before in 2022, and seems unlikely to pass this year. Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe here to a weekly email notice of new posts. Comments are closed.
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