To the Editor:
Gov. Ron DeSantis, in his bid to be president of the United States, has an initiative called “God above government.” We ask that you take a few minutes to read about an ongoing situation here in Florida and please pray for us.
We are a Christian Counseling center in Central Florida that has been providing faith-based counseling for Batterer’s Intervention Program clients for the past 33 years. In September 2022 we were notified by Florida Department of Children & Families now has oversight of all Batterer’s Intervention providers statewide. Somehow, during the time of Covid, the Florida legislature gutted the Administrative Code governing the program. Every provider was struck from the approved provider list and forced to apply like new again. This is when we noticed that in order to re-credential they now required providers to remove ALL faith-based curriculum from materials.
As of March 1, 2023 our local probation offices were informed that they could no longer allow any of their clients to choose faith-based providers. We have tried reaching out numerous times to Gov. DeSantis, Lt. Gov. Nunez, Faith Based Community Liaison Erik Dellenback and others to correct this situation. To date, none of the above have responded to our numerous requests. It is a shame that candidates want the support of the Christian community, yet turn their back on them as soon as they are elected.
We would really appreciate your prayers as we stand for the freedom to deliver the gospel to those clients entrusted to us, and those we are now being forbidden to counsel. There are many other Christian counseling and faith-based providers that we personally know of that are also affected by this poor decision. Please consider asking Gov. DeSantis to comment about this and thank you for taking the time to read about our situation here in Central Florida.
Kevin M. Drinka, GFC Counseling Office Manager
Dr. Joseph Wm. Nussbaumer, Jr., Ph.D., c/psy
CEO of GFC Counseling
