Op-Ed

Child Watch: Overmedicating Children in Foster Care

Published

10 years ago

May 25, 2015

By Marian Wright Edelman
NNPA Columnist

On any given day, nearly one in four children in foster care is taking at least one psychotropic medication – more than four times the rate for all children. Nearly half of children living in residential treatment centers or group homes take psychotropic medications. Children in foster care are more likely to be prescribed multiple psychotropic medications at very high doses, although research shows higher doses can result in serious side effects.

Viewers of the ABC News program 20/20 may remember Ke’onte Cook from a few years ago, a 10-year-old who had already spent four years in foster care being treated with a dozen different medications for conditions including seizures, bipolar disorder, and ADHD. Ke’onte had never been diagnosed with the conditions some of the medications were meant to treat. Under his adoptive parents’ care, he stopped taking all the medications and started relying on therapy, and with that new treatment plan, he was transformed. Why are some children in foster care being overmedicated, and what steps do we need to take to do something about it?

Psychotropic medications act on the brain and central nervous system to cause changes in mood, behavior, or perception. They can be effective treatments for certain serious mental health conditions but there is a growing concern that too many children in foster care are overmedicated – in some cases as a form of behavior control.

Children who come into foster care often have been exposed to multiple traumatic events, including the removal from their families, and may be at higher risk for mental health problems and emotional disorders. Too often multiple medications may be used without other kinds of effective treatments that might better address the underlying trauma children are experiencing. There’s evidence some children in foster care are subjected to powerful medications at very young ages and/or in combinations and amounts that are unsafe for children of any age. Many psychotropic medications are not approved for use in children at all.

Often children in foster care are prescribed drugs without any psychotherapy because resources aren’t available. They may not receive a proper initial diagnosis or any of the ongoing monitoring or extra services that should accompany the use of such powerful drugs – all essential considering the serious side effects from some that can include nightmares, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, and even death. The 20/20 special included the heartbreaking story of Gabriel Myers, a Florida 7-year-old who hung himself in his foster family’s bathroom. A state investigation concluded the use of psychotropic drugs was a contributing factor in his death. His foster father said the doctor who prescribed the many drugs Gabriel was taking – some so strong that even the pharmacy filling them raised red flags – would spend no more than five minutes with the little boy before sending him out the door with another prescription.

We must do better. Last year, JooYeun Chang, associate commissioner of the Children’s Bureau in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children, Youth, and Families (ACF), testified before Congress that despite important steps taken by the Administration and Congress to promote the monitoring and management of psychotropic medications and the development of trauma-informed practices, too many child welfare agencies lack the proper non-pharmacological treatments to address the mental health needs of children in foster care. This year, for the second time, in President Obama’s budget proposal ACF and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have jointly proposed a demonstration to promote trauma-informed psychosocial interventions to meet the complex needs of children who have experienced maltreatment and other trauma and to address the over-use of psychotropic medications for children in foster care.

The Administration seeks to reduce the over-reliance on drugs and increase the use of appropriate screening, assessment, and interventions. ACF is asking Congress for $250 million over five years to create the necessary infrastructure to do this, including creating a special workforce to recruit families who can care for children receiving alternative treatments; better training in trauma-informed practice for child welfare professionals; better coordination between child welfare and Medicaid agencies in case planning and case management; and better data collection and information sharing by child welfare agencies, Medicaid, and behavioral health services.

The budget request also includes an additional $500 million for CMS to provide incentives to states that demonstrate improvements to reduce inappropriate drug prescribing practices and overutilization of psychotropic medications, increase access to evidence-based and trauma-informed therapeutic interventions, promote child and adolescent wellbeing, and improve outcomes for children in the child welfare system.

These common sense and necessary steps build on best practices already in place in some states. May is National Foster Care Month and now is the right time to ensure children in foster care get the treatment and care they truly need.

Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children’s Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org.

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COMMENTARY: My Sunday School Lesson with President Jimmy Carter

When I saw him, Carter was spry, quick-witted, and kind. The former president wore a bolo string tie anchored by an eight-stone turquoise clasp that dangled below the neck, as he began the lesson on the subject of grief and the death of his 28-year-old grandson. Drawing from scripture (on this particular day, a passage on the persecution of the Thessalonians), Carter said such moments were simply tests of one’s faith, endurance, and hope.

Published

2 weeks ago

January 5, 2025

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of The White House.

By Emil Guillermo

President Jimmy Carter, at age 100, didn’t make it to the new year, nor the next presidential inaugural.

I’ve always been a big Carter fan, so the news of his passing brought me back to a happy place.

Plains, Georgia, 2016.

I was visiting family not far from the land of presidential peanut farmers. I found myself the only full-blooded Filipino in the room at Maranatha Baptist Church, the spiritual home base for the esteemed No. 39.

President Carter looked fine that Sunday in Plains. But especially fine for his job on that day– to give the Sunday school lesson on what coincidentally was the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

Carter’s health made headlines in 2015 when he disclosed having both brain and liver cancer. It was thought he had just two or three weeks to live.

Everyone’s always underestimating Carter. After treatments, Carter’s forecast turned out not to be true.

“We lack inspiration, we lack the idealism to set our goals high. We’ve been satisfied with mediocrity. And I include myself,” Carter said. People want an average life, instead of aspiring to be, “outstanding, or superb or brilliant or exceptional.”

“I’m afraid that our country and its effect on people of other nations has suffered from the aftermath of 9/11,” Carter said. He “didn’t want to brag,” but said his goal for the country was always to be “superb and be a country that promoted peace and human rights…While I was in office, we never dropped a bomb, lost a missile, or fired a bullet.”

“Since 9/11,” Carter said, “we’ve pretty much abandoned our commitment to human rights as we reacted to terrorism.” He lamented that Afghanistan had become the longest war in American history, a direct outcome of 9/11, as well as the invasion of Iraq, which Carter called “unnecessary.”

Carter, whose administration took us out of an energy crisis, also pointed out how the U.S. is still suffering from a financial crisis that has exposed a deep inequality that has divided us as a people.

“We’ve become distrustful of people who are different from us,” Carter said. “We used to be a proud heterogeneous nation…and now we are fearful…and we’ve become poorer as a country.”

Carter won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002; a fact that belies how many conservatives view his efforts to find a peace in the Middle East as “anti-Semitic.”

Jimmy Carter’s worldview requires open minds to come together. Too often. these days, that seems nearly impossible.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator He was the first Filipino American to host a national news show in 1989 at NPR’s “All Things Considered.” See Emil Amok’s Takeout on www.patreon.com/emilamok Subscribe to him on YouTube.com/@emilamok1

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In 1974, Then-Gov. Jimmy Carter Visited the Home of Oakland Black Black Political Activist Virtual Murrell While Running for President

civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.

Published

2 weeks ago

January 3, 2025

Oakland Post

Virtual Murrell chats with Jimmy Carter two years before Carter was elected president in 1976. Courtesy photo.

By Virtual T. Murrell
Special to The Post

On his way to seeking the presidency, then-Gov. Jimmy Carter visited the Bay Area in his capacity as campaign chairman of the Democratic National Committee in March of 1974.

A friend of mine, Bill Lynch, a Democrat from San Francisco, had been asked to host Carter, who was then relatively unknown. Seeking my advice on the matter, I immediately called my friend, civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond, for his opinion.

Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.

Based on Julian’s comments, I agreed to host the governor. We picked him up at the San Francisco Airport. With his toothy smile, I could tell almost right away that he was like no other politician I had ever met. On his arrival, there was a message telling him to go to the VIP room, where he met then-Secretary of State Jerry Brown.

After leaving the airport, we went to a reception in his honor at the home of Paul “Red” Fay, who had served as the acting secretary of the Navy under President John Kennedy. (Carter, it turned out, had been himself a 1946 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a submariner in the 1950s.)

The following afternoon, the Niagara Movement Democratic Club hosted a reception for Carter, which was a major success. Carter indicated that he would be considering running for president and hoped for our support if he did so.

As the event was winding down, I witnessed the most amazing moment: Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, was in the kitchen with my former wife, Irene, wearing an apron and busting suds! You would have to have been there to see it: The first and last time a white woman cleaned up my kitchen.

A few months later, President Richard Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal. He was succeeded by his vice president, Gerald Ford.

On the heels of that scandal, Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976 represented integrity and honesty at a point in America’s history when he was just what the nation needed to lead as president of the United States.

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Life After Domestic Violence: What My Work With Black Women Survivors Has Taught Me

Survivors sometimes lack awareness about the dynamics of healthy relationships, particularly when one has not been modeled for them at home. Media often minimizes domestic abuse, pushing the imagery of loyalty and love for one’s partner above everything — even harm.

Published

3 weeks ago

December 29, 2024

Oakland Post

Paméla Michelle Tate, Ph.D.

By Paméla Michelle Tate, Ph.D., California Black Media Partners

It was the Monday morning after her husband had a “situation” involving their child, resulting in food flying in the kitchen and a broken plate.

Before that incident, tensions had been escalating, and after years of unhappiness, she finally garnered enough courage to go to the courthouse to file for a divorce.

She was sent to an on-site workshop, and the process seemed to be going well until the facilitator asked, “Have you experienced domestic abuse?” She quickly replied, “No, my husband has never hit me.”

The facilitator continued the questionnaire and asked, “Has your husband been emotionally abusive, sexually abusive, financially abusive, technologically abusive, or spiritually abusive?”

She thought about how he would thwart her plans to spend time with family and friends, the arguments, and the many years she held her tongue. She reflected on her lack of access to “their money,” him snooping in her purse, checking her social media, computer, and emails, and the angry blowups where physical threats were made against both her and their children.

At that moment, she realized she had been in a long-suffering domestic abuse relationship.

After reading this, you might not consider the relationship described above as abusive — or you might read her account and wonder, “How didn’t she know that she was in an abusive relationship?”

After working with survivors at Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence in San Francisco, California, I have learned a great deal from a variety of survivors. Here are some insights:

Abuse thrives in isolation.
Societal tolerance of abusive behavior is prevalent in the media, workplaces, and even churches, although there are societal rules about the dos and don’ts in relationships.

Survivors are groomed into isolation.
Survivors are emotionally abused and manipulated almost from the beginning of their relationships through love-bombing. They are encouraged or coerced into their own little “love nest,” isolating them from family and friends.

People who harm can be charismatic and fun.
Those outside the relationship often struggle to believe the abuser would harm their partner until they witness or experience the abusive behavior firsthand.

Survivors fear judgment.
Survivors fear being judged by family, friends, peers, and coworkers and are afraid to speak out.

Survivors often still love their partners.
This is not Stockholm Syndrome; it’s love. Survivors remember the good times and don’t want to see their partner jailed; they simply want the abuse to stop.

The financial toll of abuse is devastating.
According to the Allstate Foundation’s study, 74% of survivors cite lack of money as the main reason for staying in abusive relationships. Financial abuse often prevents survivors from renting a place to stay. Compounding this issue is the lack of availability of domestic abuse shelters.

The main thing I have learned from this work is that survivors are resilient and the true experts of their own stories and their paths to healing. So, when you encounter a survivor, please take a moment to acknowledge their journey to healing and applaud their strength and progress.

About the Author

Paméla Michelle Tate, Ph.D., is executive director of Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence in San Francisco.