Tristen's Story

I took my video camera to a Foster Care Alumni meeting and asked seven foster kids to tell me about there experiences in Child Protective Services while wards of the state.

One thing they all had in common was massive over drugging with psychiatric drugs.

Child placement agencies, foster parents, RTCs (Residential Treatment Centers) and Therapeutic Foster Homes get paid a certain amount of money each day for taking care of a foster child. The amount of money they get paid depends on a level of care system. The more difficult the child or the more problems that child has, the more money you get.

A child at the basic level of care is worth about 17 dollars a day where as a child in the highest level of care could be worth as much as a 1000 dollars a day. This puts the incentive on diagnosing children with behavior problems to justify raising their level of care. A child on psychiatric drugs is worth more than a child without problems.

It is not uncommon for a foster child to be placed on many different psychotropic drugs at the same time. Some investigations have found children on as many as 13 mind altering drugs prescribed by a psychiatrists at one time.

These drugs include all categories of psychiatric drugs; antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, anxiety medications, anticonvulsants medications, etc.

The SSRI drugs are commons such as Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, etc. Also a number of these children described taking Risperdal, Zyprexa, Geodon and other new generation antipsychotics which have been linked to weight gain, obesity and diabetes.

Visit the website for the Foster Care Alumni of America.

http://www.fostercarealumni.org/

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Copyright 2007 Zoe Sofia. (more)