{"id":423,"date":"2011-03-27T07:17:36","date_gmt":"2011-03-27T13:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/?p=423"},"modified":"2024-07-14T05:42:31","modified_gmt":"2024-07-14T10:42:31","slug":"psychotropic-drug-use-in-foster-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/27\/psychotropic-drug-use-in-foster-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychotropic Drug Use in Foster Care"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/drvitelli.typepad.com\/providentia\/2010\/06\/psychotropic-drug-abuse-in-foster-care-costs-government-billions.html\">Psychotropic  Drug Use in Foster Care<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In June of 2010, the US Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management  asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigatory arm of the  Federal Government, to investigate the prevalence of prescribed psychotropic  medications for children in foster care.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>According to a number of foster care experts, children in foster care, who  are typically concurrently enrolled in Medicaid, are three or four more times as  likely to be on antipsychotic medications than other children on Medicaid.\u00c2\u00a0A  Texas study from 2004 showed that 34.7 percent of foster children were  prescribed at least one psychotropic drug with some children taking five or  more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Foster care parents receive more money if a child is on psychiatric drugs;  the children\u00c2\u00a0are considered &#8220;special needs&#8221; children, needing a higher level of  care.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Unfortunately, psychiatric drugs are not &#8220;care.&#8221; Prescribing psychotropic  drugs for children is especially troubling given their addictive nature and  the\u00c2\u00a0potential side effects associated with them, including the increased\u00c2\u00a0risk of  suicidal and violent behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajc.com\/news\/georgia-foster-kids-medicated-846324.html\">Atlanta  Journal-Constitution reports <\/a>that House Bill 23 in the Georgia state  legislature proposes to create an independent clinic review of the drugs foster  children are given,\u00c2\u00a0which has support from both Democrats and Republicans  because of its efforts to protect the vulnerable. Projections are that it will  save the state millions of dollars, as Georgia spends $7.87 million per year in  Medicaid funds on mind-altering psychiatric drugs for foster children.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/sideeffects.shtml\">Click here <\/a>for more  information about the side effects of psychiatric drugs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Download the report &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/\">Drugging Foster Care  Children<\/a>&#8221; from the CCHR St. Louis website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If you are aware of\u00c2\u00a0foster care children being abused by psychiatric drugs,  please report this to <a href=\"mailto:cchrstl@cchrstl.org\">CCHR<\/a> and to the  <a href=\"mailto:FosterKids@gao.gov\">GAO<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Psychotropic Drug Use in Foster Care In June of 2010, the US Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigatory arm of the Federal Government, to investigate the prevalence of prescribed psychotropic medications for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/27\/psychotropic-drug-use-in-foster-care\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-6P","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}