AbleChild will participate in The People’s Briefings: Social Justice Panel on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, at Murphy’s Pub, 103 Tolland Turnpike, Manchester, Connecticut, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. For 25 years, AbleChild has fought across the United States for informed consent and accountability in psychiatric products and services, remaining independent and funded by the public with no federal or state support.
Founded in 2001 by two mothers, Sheila Matthews and Patricia Weathers, and developed through work in Connecticut and New York, AbleChild has remained a steadfast voice for the people. Its message has reached audiences through major broadcast, print, and digital media, including CNN, Fox News, the Associated Press, Time Magazine, Good Housekeeping, the Hartford Courant, NBC, ABC, A&E, and other leading U.S. and international outlets and radio networks.
AbleChild is so proud to have been featured in Connecticut’s legislative process on CT-N. The mission of the Connecticut Network (CT-N) is to provide citizens with access to unbiased information about state government deliberations and public policy events. It uses noncommercial television and digital webcasts to educate the public and improve understanding of political processes and public policy development.
AbleChild has also been featured multiple times on The War Room with Stephen K. Bannon, one of the top-rated political podcasts; Bannon has 7.5 million followers aside from the popular political podcast. AbleChild provides weekly articles for JoeHoft.com and The Gateway Pundit, which draws over 1 million views per day. The Hoft brothers are noted for supporting the free press during the height of COVID censorship.
AbleChild’s message is straightforward: Connecticut’s behavioral health failures do not begin in prison. Mental Health failures begins with the Department of Children and Families (DCF), the Department of Education (DoE), and eventually Department of Corrections (DoC). Across these systems, Connecticut too often responds to children and families in crisis with psychiatric drugs, surveillance, exclusion, and confinement rather than transparency, informed consent, and meaningful care. Connecticut is dangerously over invested in behavioral health and dangerous mind altering drugs.
The end point of that pipeline is deadly. In 2024, the Department of Corrections (DoE) reported 33 in-custody deaths, including 5 suicides, and in 2025 it reported 22 more. Public reporting shows that some of the dead were not serving life sentences and, in at least one documented case, had not even been convicted: Gamboy Guaranda died by suicide while awaiting trial, and Andrey Desmond died while serving a five-year sentence.
Connecticut also continued funding the Inmate Legal Assistance Program (ILAP) through Bansley Law LLC to the tune nearly a million dollars a year, with a maximum contract value of about $3.9 million over two years. The prison ombudsman found that ILAP initiated litigation in less than 1% of matters and reported zero court appearances in two consecutive fiscal years, then recommended immediate suspension of the contract.
But the contract was not suspended. DoC rejected the recommendation, declined to withhold payments, and allowed the contract to continue even after Bansley Law refused to comply with subpoenas for records needed to evaluate its performance.
AbleChild will bring this broader social justice argument to the August 12 panel: Connecticut’s child welfare, education, and correctional systems are linked by the same behavioral-health framework, and the public should ask why taxpayers continue funding that framework when children die after DCF contact, students are pushed down the school-to-prison pipeline, and the incarcerated die in custody under state supervision.
Audit
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2025 Conditions of Confinement Report (Connecticut Office of the Correction Ombuds): https://portal.ct.gov/oga/-/media/oga/oco/2025-conditions-of-confinement-report-final.pdf