This is a problem in every state.....
In the United States, low-income and foster-care kids are prescribed psychotropic drugs at an alarmingly higher rate than their peers in America or abroad. Governing recently wrote about the problem and what states are doing to deal with it in March. But since then, California began closing in on a package of bills that could make the state a leader in controlling overmedication.
Earlier this month, the California state Senate unanimously passed four bills that would strengthen the state’s monitoring system for foster kids' prescriptions, require stronger evidence documenting the need for medications, add more medical expertise in the area of oversight and force group homes that overprescribe to develop plans to change their practices. Some of those ideas aren't new, but experts say adopting all of them together could make California a model.
"We feel pretty confident that this package of four bills is really more comprehensive and targets so many different aspects of the problem that other states really have not been targeting,” said Bill Grimm of the National Center for Youth Law, the group behind the legislation.