Liz Linehan

Children’s committee: 2019 agenda includes tightening, expanding laws on bullying, use of restraints, mandated reporters

By Josh Kovner

Hartford – The opening meeting of the legislature’s children’s committee earlier last week set the direction for some of the key child safety issues of the year: bullying in schools, use of restraints and seclusion, greater oversight of the Solnit children’s psychiatric center and the possibility of requiring computer and cellphone repairers to report child porn or other illegal material they may see while fixing devices.

Bullying topped the agenda, and it’s personal to new committee co-chair Liz Linehan, the Democratic representative from Cheshire. In December, Anjelita Estrada, 11, a sixth-grader at Doolittle Elementary School in Cheshire, committed suicide.

“I have a 9-year-old daughter — it’s hard to talk about it,” Linehan said, her voice thickening.

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