September 20th 03, 05:21 PM
We have been saying for years that foster kids are over medicated and
its only getting worst since Family Continuity took over.
DCF Has Model On Drug Policy
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board
Posted September 19 2003
The Broward County school district has the right prescription for
Florida's problems of administering psychotropic drugs to foster
children. It's a system of accountability that could be used as a
statewide model.
Unfortunately, the Florida Department of Children & Families doesn't
think it has a problem. For the past three years, DCF has ignored
pleas from child advocates, judges and the Florida Statewide Advocacy
Council to re-examine its procedures and improve the way it dispenses
medication and maintains medical records of Florida's foster children.
So, after the advocacy council recently detailed problems in a
blistering study of 1,180 children in therapeutic foster care, the
state's social service agency is left to explain its shortcomings to
its exasperated critics.
Why, for instance, did a majority of the consent forms reviewed in the
council's study have either an unauthorized signature or no signature
at all? Try to figure how 44 percent of the youngsters received
powerful medications without a medical evaluation.
Worse, how does DCF explain a physician's decision to give a
5-year-old lithium, a drug for bipolar disorders, or a 2-year-old
risperidone, a pharmaceutical product used to treat schizophrenia?
School officials in Broward County saw the potential problems of
faulty record-keeping and lax medical procedures. They commissioned a
study, which among other things, found the district had no real
consistency between schools in administering medicines to emotionally
disturbed children.
District officials developed a solution. By working with the
University of Miami School of Medicine, and ironically, DCF, they
crafted a procedures manual that established clear-cut policies for
prescribing medications and monitoring their effect on students.
The new procedures, school officials stress, are not intended to
restrict treatment options but rather to offer a systematic approach
to enhance those options. The school district's effort has caught the
attention of the President's Commission on Mental Health and has the
potential to serve as a national model for schools and social service
agencies.
DCF could follow suit, if only the beleaguered state agency follow
policies it helped to develop.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/editorial/search/sfl-editdldcfdrugssep19,0,1186952.story
its only getting worst since Family Continuity took over.
DCF Has Model On Drug Policy
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board
Posted September 19 2003
The Broward County school district has the right prescription for
Florida's problems of administering psychotropic drugs to foster
children. It's a system of accountability that could be used as a
statewide model.
Unfortunately, the Florida Department of Children & Families doesn't
think it has a problem. For the past three years, DCF has ignored
pleas from child advocates, judges and the Florida Statewide Advocacy
Council to re-examine its procedures and improve the way it dispenses
medication and maintains medical records of Florida's foster children.
So, after the advocacy council recently detailed problems in a
blistering study of 1,180 children in therapeutic foster care, the
state's social service agency is left to explain its shortcomings to
its exasperated critics.
Why, for instance, did a majority of the consent forms reviewed in the
council's study have either an unauthorized signature or no signature
at all? Try to figure how 44 percent of the youngsters received
powerful medications without a medical evaluation.
Worse, how does DCF explain a physician's decision to give a
5-year-old lithium, a drug for bipolar disorders, or a 2-year-old
risperidone, a pharmaceutical product used to treat schizophrenia?
School officials in Broward County saw the potential problems of
faulty record-keeping and lax medical procedures. They commissioned a
study, which among other things, found the district had no real
consistency between schools in administering medicines to emotionally
disturbed children.
District officials developed a solution. By working with the
University of Miami School of Medicine, and ironically, DCF, they
crafted a procedures manual that established clear-cut policies for
prescribing medications and monitoring their effect on students.
The new procedures, school officials stress, are not intended to
restrict treatment options but rather to offer a systematic approach
to enhance those options. The school district's effort has caught the
attention of the President's Commission on Mental Health and has the
potential to serve as a national model for schools and social service
agencies.
DCF could follow suit, if only the beleaguered state agency follow
policies it helped to develop.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/editorial/search/sfl-editdldcfdrugssep19,0,1186952.story