Children

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not specify which exact sections of Titles 36, 49, and 63 are being amended beyond Title 63, Chapter 1, Section 176(c).

Amending Rules for School Social Workers

This bill changes Tennessee laws to allow school social workers to provide certain types of counseling without needing parental consent.

What This Bill Does

• Adds a new rule that lets school social workers give preventative and developmental counseling to students without getting permission from the student's parents first.

Who It Names or Affects

• School social workers who are licensed by the state board of education
• Students receiving counseling from school social workers

Terms To Know

school social worker

A person trained and certified to help students with personal, family, or educational problems.

preventative counseling

Helping students before they have serious issues to avoid future problems.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill only changes the rules for school social workers and does not affect other types of counselors or healthcare providers.
• It is unclear how this change will be implemented in schools across Tennessee.

Official Summary Text

Present law prohibits a healthcare provider or any other person to knowingly take any of the following actions with regard to a minor without first obtaining the consent of a parent of the minor:



Treat, profess to diagnose, operate on, or prescribe for any physical ailment, physical injury, or deformity.


Prescribe, dispense, deliver, or administer any drug or medication.


Render psychological services.


Render counseling services.

However, t
his prohibition does not apply
in the following situations:



A parent of the minor has given blanket consent authorizing the person or entity to perform an activity listed above.


A government entity, healthcare provider, or any other person reasonably relies in good faith on an individual's representations that the individual is the parent of a minor or has otherwise been granted authority to make decisions regarding a minor's health care under state law.


A licensed physician performs emergency medical or surgical treatment.


Licensed personnel render appropriate emergency medical care and provide emergency medical services.


A person, including a law enforcement officer, participates or assists in rendering emergency care.


An employee of a local education agency acts to control bleeding using a bleeding control kit.


A person acts reasonably to render appropriate, non-emergency first aid to a minor appearing or represented to be sick or injured. Such non-emergency first aid includes dressing minor wounds, applying topical agents, providing fluids or ice, and performing checks to identify minor illnesses.


A healthcare provider, using reasonable medical judgment, based upon the facts known to the healthcare provider at the time, performs a screening of a minor who the healthcare provider reasonably believes is a trafficked person or a victim of brutality, neglect, or abuse in order to determine whether the healthcare provider must make a report.


A school counselor or school psychologist, licensed by the state board of education, who provides preventative and developmental counseling.

This
bill includes a school social worker, licensed by the state board of education, who provides preventative and developmental counseling to the list in which the prohibition does not apply.

Current Bill Text

HOUSE BILL 2459
By Faison

SENATE BILL 2675
By Akbari
SB2675
011038
- 1 -

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 36,
Chapter 8; Title 49 and Title 63, Chapter 1, relative
to treatment of minors.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 63-1-176(c), is amended by adding
the following as a new subdivision:
(10) A school social worker, licensed by the state board of education, provides
preventative and developmental counseling.
SECTION 2. This act takes effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.