Blogs by Deborah K. Frontiera
Fighting CPS
12/19/2011 12:28:31 PM
Special note: this will be the last blog post of 2011. This writer plans to enjoy some family time for Christmas and New Year’s Day. Look for the next posting Jan.9, 2012. May all my readers and their families enjoy relaxed and Blessed holidays.
The purpose of this blog is to provide updates on some of the cases I reported in my book (Fighting CPS: Guilty Until Proven Innocent of Child Protective Services Charges ISBN 9-780-9800061-6-2) that had not been resolved when the book went to press, and to report other cases where CPS is not working up to par. I’d also like to hear about cases in which Child Protective Services did the right thing so those cases can serve as examples of what should be done. Occasionally, I will report helpful tips and web sites with advice on fighting CPS.
Sadly, today’s post involves yet another kind of failure by Child Protective Services regarding children in foster care. Several media reports showed children in foster care being prescribed various powerful psychotropic drugs much more often than children not in foster care. The result was a federal investigation of children in foster care in Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, and Texas. The report, which included statistics from 2008, showed that children in foster care were 2.7 to 4.5 times more likely to be prescribed these drugs than children not in foster care. My own state of Texas had a rate four times higher for foster care children than those with their families. Several children were reported to have been on more than one medication at the same time—some as high as five at the same time. The Government Accounting Office found in this two-year investigation that children as young as one year of age were twice as likely to be prescribed such drugs.
One might argue that such children might need these drugs to improve their behavior or overcome the trauma they have been through, but often, their behavior may be attributed to their anger over their situation, not a true medical diagnosis of ADHD, bi-polar, depression, anxiety, etc. Because many states have a shortage of psychiatrists, many of these children do not see a mental health professional before such drugs are prescribed. Family doctors and pediatricians may be left to make decisions in complex cases because the wait time for a mental health professional is six to nine months or more. Because of this, many opt for the short term solution of medicating a child into complacency. Critics call it chemical restraint for unruly children. But such use of drugs may not help a child; it may only sedate them for a while until the problem rears up again.
What’s worse, some of these drugs are not recommended for children under eighteen years of age and the study showed that the dosages prescribed were frequently higher than those prescribed for adults! And many of the drugs have no studies for long term side effects.
How terrifying that such young children are taking such drugs when they may not need them!
If you are a parent, foster parent or involved in any way with children on any psychotropic drug, please work closely with your doctor—and put on the pressure to be with a psychiatrist—to be sure there is not some other way to deal with the problems the child may be having. Try everything and anything else before asking your doctor to reach for the prescription pad. Also, pressure your medical community and state legislative bodies to exert greater oversight of the use of such drugs for young children.
(Information for this post came from an article in the Houston Chronicle, Friday, Dec. 2 pg. A9. No material was directly quoted.)
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