In many states and provinces, judges play a role in placing kids into foster care and in getting kids out of foster care. So a new report on medication given to children in foster care should cause some alarm. 

Governing Magazine reports that: 

“Mental health issues are front and center in human services. Every day, caseworkers work in an environment where mental health services aren’t as robust as they should be and where medication for kids in custody sometimes serves as a substitute for more appropriate care.

A good example of this is in New York state, where a crew of data hounds found that on Fridays, requests for psychotropic meds for kids in custody — especially those in institutional settings — spiked. Why? The unavoidable conclusion the data crunchers came to was that weekends at institutional facilities means fewer staff, and fewer staff means that properly attending to kids’ needs is tougher. To be blunt about it, it’s just cheaper and easier to drug kids than to take care of them in the most therapeutically appropriate way.

Of course, concerns over the use of medication among foster children certainly aren’t exclusive to New York. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released at the end of last year highlights two alarming facts: First, children under state supervision generally aren’t getting consistent, appropriate mental health care of any kind, even though mental health issues are a huge part of why kids wind up in state custody. Second, nearly 20 percent of children in foster care are taking psychotropic medication — three times the rate of children on Medicaid and four times higher than kids covered by private health insurance.”