Study Shows 25 Percent Of Colorado Foster Kids On Psychotropic Drugs

[neversickanymore]

Study Shows 25 Percent Of Colorado Foster Kids On Psychotropic Drugs
APR 14, 2014

The rate is 12 times greater than for other children on government insurance, a new study in Colorado finds.

The Denver Post: Colorado Responds Slowly To Psychotropic Drug Use Among Foster Kids
Diego Conde was 12 when his mother died, devastated and bursting with rage at the rotten way life was treating him. The only living thing left that mattered to him was his tiny dog, Littlefoot. Then, three months later, Littlefoot died. Diego was sent to live with strangers — a string of foster families in Denver and Aurora. He got in fights at school, started drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, and exploded in anger at his teachers and temporary parents. At 13, he overdosed on borrowed prescriptions because he "couldn't take it anymore." And so the state medicated him heavily, with twice-daily doses of potent mood-altering psychotropic drugs he says he did not want to take. About 4,300 of Colorado's 16,800 foster children -- more than a quarter -- were prescribed psychotropics in 2012, according to a University of Colorado analysis released to The Denver Post under open-records laws. Among teens in foster care, 37 percent were prescribed psychotropic drugs (Brown and Osher, 4/13).

The Denver Post: Drug Firms Used Dangerous Tactics To Drive Sales To Treat Kids
Pharmaceutical companies wooed academic leaders, ghostwrote articles, suppressed damaging health data and lavished doctors with gifts to make prescribing powerful psychotropic drugs to children a blockbuster profit center, a trail of lawsuits over the past two decades shows. As a Colorado Springs sales representative for GlaxoSmithKline, Greg Thorpe tried to put a stop to the practice. His manager wrote him up for not being a "team player" after he objected to the free spa treatments and pedicures, hunting trips, tickets to sports games and skiing junkets that his supervisors expected him to give out to doctors and others (Osher and Brown, 4/14).

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2014/April/14/colorado-kids-psychotropic-drugs.aspx

 

[_DankOpiAmp_]

Apparently the drugging of foster children is epidemic in manic states. Give deranged and abused children antipsychotics so they are compliant zombies and keep getting cheques in the mail from the government...

 

[neversickanymore]

^ I agree dank, sure to be allot of that happening.


I realize that foster care is needed. But the system in the states at least is such a mess it really must be nightmare for many kids. First you loose your parents, then you could end up drugged up possibly living with less than desirable people, then your abandoned once more, this time by the system.

Poverty and homelessness[edit]


New York street children in 1890
Nearly half of foster children in the U.S. become homeless when they turn 18.[46][47] "One of every 10 foster children stays in foster care longer than seven years, and each year about 15,000 reach the age of majority and leave foster care without a permanent family—many to join the ranks of the homeless or to commit crimes and be imprisoned.[48][49]

Three out of 10 of the United States homeless are former foster children.[50] According to the results of the Casey Family Study of Foster Care Alumni, up to 80 percent are doing poorly—with a quarter to a third of former foster children at or below the poverty line, three times the national poverty rate.[51] Very frequently, people who are homeless had multiple placements as children: some were in foster care, but others experienced "unofficial" placements in the homes of family or friends.

Individuals with a history of foster care tend to become homeless at an earlier age than those who were not in foster care.[citation needed] The length of time a person remains homeless is longer in individuals who were in foster care.[52]

Suicide-death rate[edit]
Children in foster care are at a greater risk of suicide,[53] the increased risk of suicide is still prevalent after leaving foster care and occurs at a higher rate than the general population. In a small study of twenty-two Texan youths who aged out of the system, 23 percent had a history of suicide attempts.[54]

A Swedish study utilizing the data of almost one million people including 22,305 former foster children who had been in care prior to their teens, concluded:

Former child welfare clients were in year of birth and sex standardised risk ratios (RRs) four to five times more likely than peers in the general population to have been hospitalised for suicide attempts....Individuals who had been in long-term foster care tended to have the most dismal outcome...former child welfare/protection clients should be considered a high-risk group for suicide attempts and severe psychiatric morbidity.[55]

Academic prospects[edit]
Educational outcomes of ex-foster children in the Northwest Alumni Study:[59]

56% completed high school compared to 82% of the general population, although an additional 29% of former foster children received a G.E.D. compared to an additional 5% of the general population.
42.7% completed some education beyond high school.
20.6% completed any degree or certificate beyond high school
16.1% completed a vocational degree; 21.9% for those over 25.
1.8% complete a bachelors degree, 2.7% for over 25, the completion rate for the general population in the same age group is 24%, a sizable difference.
The study reviewed case records for 659 foster care alumni in Northwest USA, and interviewed 479 of them between September 2000 and January 2002.[59]

Psychotropic medication use[edit]
Studies have revealed that youth in foster care covered by Medicaid insurance receive psychotropic medication at a rate that was 3 times higher than that of Medicaid-insured youth who qualify by low family income. In a review (September 2003 to August 2004) of the medical records of 32,135 Texas foster care 0–19 years-old, 12,189 were prescribed psychotropic medication, resulting in an annual prevalence of 37.9% of these children being prescribed medication. 41.3% received 3 different classes of these drugs during July 2004, and 15.9% received 4 different classes. The most frequently used medications were antidepressants (56.8%), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder drugs (55.9%), and antipsychotic agents (53.2%). The study also showed that youth in foster care are frequently treated with concomitant psychotropic medication, for which sufficient evidence regarding safety and effectiveness is not available.[60]

The use of expensive, brand name, patent protected medication was prevalent. In the case of SSRIs the use of the most expensive medications was noted to be 74%; in the general market only 28% are for brand name SSRI's vs generics. The average out-of-pocket expense per prescription was $34.75 for generics and $90.17 for branded products, a $55.42, difference.[61]

But lets keep funding the prisons for drug users. The issues they fail to address undoubtedly contribute to the number of foster kids and im sure prison itself causes many kids to be forced into the foster system. I know there are good foster parents out there but with these numbers there is something deeply wrong happening here.