The issues in politics are not complex, even though the politicians tell us so to convince us of their importance – and to keep us from criticizing them.
--Costa Gavras
The issue of the misuse
and overuse of powerful, dangerous psychiatric medications on foster children
finally is getting some of the attention it deserves at the national level.
It was the subject of a
GAO report and a
comprehensive study from PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of
Philadelphia.
Most important, it’s a top
priority of the nation’s highest-ranking child welfare official, George
Sheldon, who runs the Administration for Children and Families. He led efforts to curb the use of these
medications when he ran the Florida Department of Children and Families. He’s convened a summit on the issue, bringing
together officials from all 50 states, at the end of August.
But in child welfare there
always is the danger that latter-day “child savers” will try to make
complicated what really is not – in order to convince us of their importance,
keep us from criticizing them, and avoid actually doing anything about the
problem.
A reminder of why this
issue really is not complex comes this week in a
superb dissection of child welfare in New York City, published in the New York Review of Books. (Most of it is behind a paywall, but it’s
well worth the $4.99.
This article, when
read along with the stories in the current issue of City Limits, like
this one, and last year’s New York
Magazine story on the real world
of caseworkers, offer a definitive portrait of the real state of child welfare
in New York today – and how it got that way.
There is much
that is outstanding about this most recent article, including its keen understanding of the
history and current reality of child welfare in New York, and the vital role of
groups like the Child Welfare Organizing Project
in improving that reality for thousands of families. (Over the years, NCCPR has received grants to
help CWOP with media work.)
The story also includes
this case example, which will be followed by a pop quiz:
[A] mother who was in a drug treatment program lost her child after a
single relapse. For a while, mother and
daughter were allowed to meet regularly at a desolate Bronx foster care agency
beside a gravel yard where garbage blew around like tumbleweeds.
One day, when the child appeared with a black eye somehow acquired in
her foster home, the mother became hysterical, and the police were called. The
child was placed in a new foster home, but after that, mother and daughter
spiraled into madness.
While scrambling to assemble court documents, the mother managed to
obtain the original report filed when her daughter was first taken away. This
document, signed by the New York State commissioner for children and family
services, states that the original allegation of neglect was “unfounded”—aside
from the single drug relapse, the report said the child was well taken care of.
Nevertheless, because of the mother’s angry outbursts, she lost her
parental rights last February. Her daughter, now eight and taking four
psychotropic medications to control her behavior—including one that can cause
irreversible catatonia and drooling—is, the mother told me, up for adoption.
So, here’s your pop quiz:
What would have been the best way to prevent this girl from winding up “taking four
psychotropic medications to control her behavior—including one that can cause
irreversible catatonia and drooling.”
Any questions?
