Drug Laws Violated for Foster Kids, Part Two : Deeper Concerns

In the wake of a little boy's suicide and the admission by child welfare chiefs
that they violated a 2005 law aimed at protecting kids from psychiatric-drug use, some Florida lawmakers suggest the death may be a symptom of deeper problems.

The 2005 law came about when Florida lawmakers became concerned that kids in foster care were being needlessly medicated to control "difficult" behavior.

On April 27, Sen. Ronda Storms, who chairs the Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee, wrote to DCF Secretary George Sheldon, ''This case raises serious concerns which demand attention and answers,'' Among the questions, she asked was, ``To what degree, if any, has the [department] ignored or circumvented . . . the 2005 law which curbed the use of psychotropic drugs in the treatment of our children in department care?''

A former lawmaker who authored the 2005 legislation, Walter G. ''Skip'' Campbell, who also chaired the children's committee, accused the DCF of ''cooking the numbers'' so as to make it look as if had curbed the use of mental health drugs to "manage" the behavior of unruly children.

In a report last September to the Florida Senate, the DCF claimed that less than 7percent (2,307!) foster kids were on such drugs. It also claimed that in almost all cases the agency had "received proper consent". But that report was based on figures from the DCF's internal database (known as the Florida Safe Families Network, or FSFN) long acknowledged by administrators to be unreliable.

In a memo as long ago as September 2006, the DCF's then-director of family safety, Patricia Badland, said DCF's computer system recorded that only 4 percent of children in the state's care were being given psychotropic drugs -- while a separate system kept by Medicaid said nearly 12 percent - three times as many - of foster children were on psychotropic medications.

''This discrepancy would . . . indicate there is under-reporting of children being prescribed psychotherapeutic medications,'' Badland wrote. "It is critical that the . . . database be accurate and up-to-date to assure that we are able to monitor all children taking these medications.''

Eight months later, DCF did report to the Senate that 11.3 percent of children in its care from September through November 2006 had been prescribed mind-altering drugs.

Concerns over the drugging of children were raised as long ago as 2001, when The Miami Herald reported that child welfare administrators were relying on powerful mind-altering drugs to manage the behavior of unruly foster kids, and that those children sometimes suffered dangerous side-effects. Advocates accused the department of using such drugs as ''chemical restraints'' and this concern eventually led to the 2005 law.

Dr. Ewald Horwath, interim chairman of the University of Miami Medical School's psychiatry and behavioral sciences department, said, ''What use can one have for an anti-psychotic drug, other than a psychiatric one?''
He also said, ''It seems to me you would want parental consent before prescribing. You would want someone exercising judgment in place of the child, who cannot make decisions on whether benefits outweigh risks.''

It appears that in Florida children were illegally denied that basic right.

About The Author

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