Too dependent on convenience
California’s Legislature has rightly focused on caregivers’ excessive use of psychiatric medications for foster children as a prominent issue this year. On Tuesday, four important bills unanimously passed the state Senate Human Services Committee. We urge state lawmakers to keep the momentum going as the bills continue to wend their way through the state Capitol.
Nearly 1 in 4 California children in foster care is on psychotropic medications ( including antipsychotics, antidepressants and stimulants). In group homes, the percentage shoots to a shocking 56 percent. The drugs are being used as a Band- Aid for difficult behavior.
The idea that traumatized children may behave in difficult ways is frankly unsurprising. The solution is to help these children learn how to deal with their trauma and manage their behavior — not stuff them with serious drugs that can have debilitating side effects. Long- term use of psychotropic drugs can lead to diabetes, obesity, heart disease, tremors and, in the most serious cases, death. These are the four bills: SB283, authored by Sen. Holly Mitchell, D- Los Angeles, which would require judicial oversight for the prescription of psychotropic drugs to foster children;
SB253, authored by Sen. Bill Monning, D- Carmel, which would create an oversight process for prescribing psychotropic drugs to foster children, by requiring judges to find specific health care facts before authorizing caretakers to use them;
SB319, authored by Sen. Jim Beall, D- San Jose, which would require counties to provide a nurse to monitor foster children who are taking psychotropic drugs;
SB484, also from Beall, which would establish special protocols and state oversight for caretaker use of psychotropic drugs in the group home setting.
All of these four bills must pass both chambers of the Legislature, and the good news is that they’re on their way. When they pass, Californians can’t expect that the problems of psychotropic drug overuse in the child welfare system will magically disappear. Taking care of children who have experienced trauma is a tough task that requires patience, skill, and money — it’s far easier to give them drugs.
But the state is morally obligated to be a better parent than this. By erecting sensible restrictions around the use of these dangerous medications, the Legislature will give California’s foster children a fighting chance to find the care they really need.