Foster children can act out, develop physiological conditions or retreat from the world and those trying to love them. No child in foster care deals with his or her situation in the same way, but there’s a truth — nationwide — affecting that group’s future. At significantly higher rates than kids raised outside the system, foster children are being drugged with psychotropic pharmaceuticals possessing the capacity for long-term damage.
According to Maureen Howley who authored, A FEDERAL SOLUTION TO FOSTER CARE’S PSYCHOTROPIC DRUG CRISIS , “Foster care’s overreliance on psychotropic drugs can be traced to the fact that there are more pressures to medicate foster children than there are pressures against medicating them. Among the pressures to medicate are the foster child’s behavior, the lack of a consistent interested party in the foster child’s life, the growing number of primary care doctors prescribing psychotropic medication, the influence of drug manufacturers, a lack of patience or funds for alternative treatments, and the attitudes of foster parents and school personnel.” The implications for the importance of all children in foster care having a Court Appointed Special Advocate are obvious!
Be that one consistent party in a foster child’s life – take time to Contact Us or fill out a Volunteer Application by using the menu bar above. We’ll be in touch to talk with you about ways you can be involved in Delaware County CASA.