What do you think should happen to a child in fostercare who is on a cocktail of 5 differnat precription drugs

Question

This is the norm for over 50% of foster children in the U.S and Canada. Most drugs they are on are not even approved for children to boot. W5 and other news agencies exposed this on a number of occasions. They reported some kids were on up to 13 different meds at once.

Answer 1

I think this has less to do with them being foster kids and much much MORE to do with them being Medicaid kids - though being foster kids does help.  A foster parent who is turning down doctor recomended drugs will doubtless be investigated.  

Think about this.  The more drugs a child is on, the more tests and doctors visits he/she needs to monitor those drugs.  While it is true that many foster kids have more problems than the national average, one or two medications should be sufficient in most cases (unless it's for a true medical condition...  my son, for instance, has three different perscriptions to deal with his pulmonary troubles, and had more when it was thought he had reflux and allergies).  

However, most foster children are troubled.  I mean, come on, what child who has been moved from home to home isn't going to have a few issues???  Most of these can be handled through counseling, but they provide some doctors with a convenient excuse to provide drugs.  Then the doctor gets to have the kid come in for followups every 3 months and gets to bill Medicaid for them.  

Perhaps you think I'm being synical - but here in San Antonio there have been NUMEROUS doctors and dentists found to be "recruiting" poor kids for proceedures they didn't need - just so they could bill medicaid.  Go into any low income school, and you'll see a ridiculously high number of caps on teeth - BABY teeth!!!!!  When a doctor knows a child has medicaid, it's amazing how many things the doctor wants to do to the child.....  dentists are worse, but doctors can be pretty bad too.  You would think that a doctor or dentist would make enough money that he/she wouldn't need to abuse the system, but...  there you have it.  

I don't think anything should happen the CHILD for being over medicated.  What needs to happen is better monitoring of foster child healthcare.  I've known foster parents to complain to the doctors that they child is over medicated, but the doctors just don't listen - and the foster parent (not being a fully legal guardian) is powerless to stop it.  Maybe there even are some foster parents wanting to overmedicate their kids - but I think that's probably where far less of the problem is comming from.  The truth is, some people are money hungry and will do anything they can to rob the system, and that's who's causing most of the trouble.  Have you ever HAD a child on five medications at one time???  It's not a walk in the park.  I can't imagine many parents actually choosing it.

Answer 2

bizzi... you are preaching to the converted here:  i know for a fact that kids are being pushed drugs in foster/placement homes from very young ages.

the rationale is that the drugs help with their "behavioral" and "emotional" issues. h**l, if i were forced to live in sub-human conditions, with no love and affection, supervived by a bunch of under-qualified and apathetic staff, i'd be behaviorally inappropriate and emo too!  

the drugs do what drugs have always done: make it easier for the people dealing with them to control their behavior.

when i was in college, i had to complete a practicum for my degree. since my background is in adolescent health, i decided to intern at a foster care center.  i was shocked by what i observed.  kids were placed in isolation for minor infractions.  kids were treated like criminals and made to walk in straight lines, stand against the wall when the workers walked past, made to sleep in locked rooms, et al.

and they wonder why the kids acted out.  h**l, my kid acts out when he can't hang out with his friends.  i can only imagine what happens to kids who are forced to live under those conditions....

...oh, you stated it.. they are drugged up.

madness!

Answer 3

I used to work in a state run group home for adolescents with emotional difficulties.  One of the problems we staff frequently encountered was over-medication of the children.  We would have to file reports all of the time for the doctors to read letting them know of the problems this was causing in the lives of these kids.  It was sad because we knew that frequently this was done to make the jobs of the school staff easier by keeping the children quite sedated.  The doctors normally saw the school staff much more regularly than they saw the house staff, so the input from the school staff was more frequent, and probably given higher consideration.

Fortunately, we were able to drop these medications for many of the children, but it took a lot of time before these changes would happen.  Yes, medication really was appropriate in some circumstances where a child had a mental illness.  But, there was no reason to give a child tons of meds, so to speak, and sedate the child.

This idea of medicating small children needs to be considered an absolute last resort.  Even at that, medication should be used sparingly. These children's bodies are not as equipped as an adults body to handle these meds.

Answer 4

my stepson is bipolar and adhd. so if someone like him was in their care then i would say it would be a good thing. i know what torture he goes through without his meds.

but a 2 year old on mind altering drugs? what is that all about? sounds like someone doesnt want to deal with a normal kid and so if they medicate them they are zombies. thats just sick. i cant imagine what doctor would prescribe those. bet he is getting a hefty "tip" on the side.

my mother has serious medical problems, she is in her 70s and she takes 15 different meds a day. what possible medical probs could a child have to justify such sedation.

what should happen? in a perfect world a real doctor would step in and re-evaluate these kids. they would correctly treat any real problems and properly adjust meds.

my son was prescribed the meds for his conditions, i came right home and researched every one. i checked drug interactions, child dosage, side effects, everything. i wanted to make sure he was getting what he actually needed. maybe others just dont do that.

all of that is just sick and immoral. drugs are to help them, not shut them up

Answer 5

Have you ever seen "psychetruth" on You Tube? She is really into promoting awareness in the destructive methods of cocktail drugs being forced onto foster children and youth. Its horrible. Her videos really opened my eyes to that. It SHOULD NOT be happening.

http://www.youtube.com/psychetruth

She has 7 or 8 videos of interviews of foster youth on page 9 of her videos where they each talk about all the different kinds of meds they were on and how it effected them first hand. Its horrible.

just incase anyone is interested.

Answer 6

This is very bad.  Part of this is a need for better training of foster parents.  The agency we worked through very much encouraged us during the training to avoid relying on medications for behavior management, I think all them should make this a priority.

However, there a reality that there are not enough foster homes, especially GOOD foster homes, and CPS and other agencies are dependent on whoever they can find to take these kids.  So, too many of these homes are little more than warehouses for these kids.  We really need to encourage people to become foster parents.

Answer 7

I can think of two reasons why they are doing this:

1) they want the child easier to manage (drugs should not be needed)

2) the child is denying abuse and this way it keeps them in such a haze, they either believe the lies their social workers keep feeding them or are unable to refute the allegations against their parents.

Personally, I think its all about the second theory.  They realize the kid isn't being abused, but need to cover their azzes so they dope them up to either believe stories of abuse or are unable to deny the abuse (so then social workers can claim the child is too "traumatized" by the abuse to testify for anything).

SICK SICK SICK!!!!!!  And it makes it much worse is if there is a chance the parents get their child back, they are REQUIRED to keep them on meds or risk losing their child again for so called "medical neglect".

Answer 8

Yes, I heard about this and it does need to stop. the child should be put under a doctor's care to get weaned off the drugs, if it is found that these drugs are not needed.

Answer 9

It's tragic, unless it's for a drug resistant virus/bacteria. Nothing should happen to the poor child, other than allowing the child to be placed with a loving adoptive family. I would think someone needs to look into the foster system and have a good explanation. You didn't say what kind of meds, though. Who are the doctors prescribing them and why?

Answer 10

Why are they on the drugs?  I know children who are multiple medications but it is because they have serious medical conditions.

Are you referring to children being on drugs unneccesarily?  If so why would anyone do that?  Wouldn't it just be expensive and annoying?

Almost ALL drugs are not specifically approved for children as in order to get that approval they would need to trial the drugs on children and who is going to volunteer their child for that?

Answer 11

If my daughter was in care you can guarantee she would be highly medicated. She has sensory integration disorder and most likely has an autism spectrum disorder as well. Neither of them would benefit from meds but her behaviour can be difficult to deal with at times and over medicating would force her into a more passive and pliable state. Fair? h**l no!

They appear to do this as a way to back out of actually dealing with the issues these kids face, it is far easier to medicate a child than it is to actually get the psychological intervention that may be needed. Why cart them to appointments when you can make little zombies out of them? SICK!

Just another reason foster care needs a major overhaul and has needed one for many years.