Drugging Foster Kids: Let’s Do Something About It

Drugging Foster Kids: Let’s Do Something About It

Foster children are a lucrative market for psychotropic drug sales. Unlike adults, they can’t say “no, I won’t take any more of that drug.” Unlike children living with parents, their parents cannot say “I don’t like what that drug is doing.” Responsibility for prescribing is diffused confusingly among foster parents, caseworkers, child welfare supervisors, group home administrators, and prescribers. All are involved, but their roles in medication decisions are overlapping and ill-defined. It is easy for each to say, “it wasn’t my decision.