HARTFORD — State Sen. Joseph Crisco, Jr. (D-17) spoke with students, faculty members and administrators at Southern Connecticut State University early this week about mental health access and services in Connecticut as they relate to gun violence.
“The importance of continuing this dialogue with respect to safeguarding our students and all state residents from potential gun violence cannot be understated,” Crisco said in a statement. “(The) forum was extremely productive in that it helps all of us who were there stay focused on addressing the causes and working to prevent future incidents of gun violence.”
Crisco is a member of the mental health services working group of the legislature’s Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety, created last month in response to the December school shootings in Newtown.
Crisco said the forum was particularly poignant as four of the 26 Newtown victims had direct ties with SCSU.
Crisco and others were welcomed to the forum by Peter Troiano, interim vice president of Student and University Affairs, and the senator was formally introduced by Mary Papazian, president of SCSU.
“I’m grateful to the faculty and administration at SCSU for inviting me to today’s event and I applaud their continuing commitment to transforming such a shocking, horrible circumstance into something positive and constructive in our state,” Crisco said in a statement. “As our mental health services working group, and each of the other working groups, refines its legislative recommendations to the task force at large we will continue soliciting input from all parties since it is so abundantly clear all parties remain deeply affected by what happened that day.”
