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Committee lays over bill to replace 'emotional disturbance' with 'mental illness' in statutes
Summary
Senate File 2134 would standardize statutory language by replacing ‘emotional disturbance’ with 'mental illness' and change child-welfare phrasing such as 'out-of-home placement' to treatment-specific terms; committee laid the bill over after brief testimony supporting clarity for families and policy separation.
Senate File 2134 was introduced March 13, 2025, to revise statutory language across Minnesota law by replacing outdated or ambiguous terms. The bill would change occurrences of the phrase “emotional disturbance” to “mental illness” and replace certain child-welfare phrases like “out-of-home placement” with treatment-specific terms such as “residential treatment” or “therapeutic foster care.”
Senator Mohammed said the changes are intended to remove confusion with special-education terminology and to better separate children's mental-health pathways from child-protection terminology. “Parents of children are no longer afraid of using the term mental illness. They know what depression and anxiety are. So let's not shy away from using the correct term,” said Sue Abderholden, executive director of NAMI Minnesota, who supported the measure.
Testimony noted that while the bill changes wording, it does not alter definitions or eligibility criteria in the Children's Mental Health Act. Committee members described the bill as a technical cleanup to reduce confusion for families and providers.
Senate File 2134 as amended was laid over for further consideration; no appropriation or substantive policy change was recorded in the hearing.
