Foster kids lose

Still subject to over use of psycho-tropic drugs

May 1st, 2010

State Sen. Rhonda Storms, a Valrico Republican, put up a Herculean fight on behalf of Florida’s foster kids this week, but a powerful bloc of doctors and psychiatrists defeated her in the Florida House.

The House leadership could have prevented this travesty. Instead, it caved to Florida’s powerful medical lobby and sacrificed some of the state’s most vulnerable residents.

The battle was over use of psycho-tropic drugs on youth in state care. After the 2009 suicide of 7-year-old foster child Gabriel Myers in Margate, the Department of Children & Families hired former Florida Department of Law Enforcement Deputy Commissioner Jim Sewell to investigate how drugs are used to control unruly foster kids.

Mr. Sewell pulled no punches in his report. Foster parents and doctors often resort to strong anti-depressants to keep children with emotional problems in line. Treatment of their underlying psychological problems take second place to keeping them drugged up.

Gabriel had been prescribed several such drugs before he hung himself, including anti-depressants linked to an increased risk of suicide among children.

The DCF sought better oversight of how doctors prescribe psychiatric drugs to foster children. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Storms, would have required doctors to seek the “assent” of older foster kids before they could be medicated and upheld current law requiring doctors to get consent from a parent or a judge in most cases before using drugs.

That’s reasonable – and, more important, in the child’s best interests. But physicians fought, saying they didn’t want government telling them what to do. Republican state Rep. Paige Kreegel, a Punta Gorda doctor, blocked the bill from even being heard in the House, though it had passed easily in the Senate.

Sen. Storms tried every legislative maneuver available to get around Rep. Kreegel, but the physicians won the day, and Florida’s foster children are worse off for it.

DCF ought to seek another way to control use of these medications until reason prevails in the House.

Fredd Grimm - Columnist - Miami Herald

Miami Herald

Foster kids’ drug nightmare continues

By Fred Grimm

May 1st, 2010

Gabriel Myers died for nothing.

His shocking death supposedly galvanized Florida. It would mean something, this suicide of a foster kid who had been drugged into nether-consciousness with antidepressants and antipsychotics never intended for any child, much less a 7-year-old.

A new law would be crafted. State-sponsored zombification of foster kids would be stanched. Something would be done.

More like nothing.

“I was shocked. I was devastated,” said Mez Pierre, a young survivor of the unrestrained psychotropic regimes used to addle Florida foster kids.

THE PERPLEXING PUSHBACK

Pierre, 23, joined a number of child advocates, state officials, political leaders and judges in the Gabriel Myers Work Group formed by the Department of Children & Families. They met a dozen times over the past year, exploring legislative fixes for this stunning propensity to subdue foster children with adult-strength pharmaceuticals.

The group was born out of our collective shame. Gabriel Myers had been addled with Lexapro, Zyprexa and Symbyax – a drug cocktail no real parent would countenance. On April 15, 2010, Gabriel locked himself in the bathroom of his Margate foster home, coiled a shower hose around his neck and shocked Florida into . . . nothing.

The widely supported bill designed to regulate the drugging of foster kids disappeared in the House of Representatives this week. Medical and drug-industry lobbyists, and a single powerful legislator, Rep. Paige Kreegel, chairman of the Health Care Services Policy Committee, managed to waylay the bill.

Bernard P. Perlmutter, director of the University of Miami’s Children & Youth Law Clinic, was surprised that “pushback came from doctors and psychiatrists, since the bill did little more than codify existing medical ethics standards and laws regarding consent from a child’s parents or judge, and assent from the child, before psychotropic medication could be administered.”

Kreegel feigned unfamiliarity with Myers’ case. “I am shocked that the chairman never heard about Gabriel Myers, especially after the months of work by a task force of leading experts and then work by the Senate,” said Broward child advocate Andrea Moore. “Unfortunately, we know there are other children who have been harmed by the unfettered use of these drugs as chemical restraints. If a highly publicized death is not enough to galvanize the Legislature, I do not know what will do it.”

SPIRITS IN SHACKLES

Mez Pierre now understands Florida’s priorities: Doctors matter. But foster children . . .

“They sent foster kids a message.” he said.

“You’re just not important enough to protect.”

Pierre, 23, grew up in so-called “therapeutic” foster homes from age 5 to 18, shuffling from one zombie warehouse to another, where psychotropic drugs left him perpetually listless, filled his head with strange, often suicidal thoughts and caused serious physical side effects.

The brutal effects ended when he left foster care at age 18 and quit the psychotropics. Without the pills, the supposedly unruly young man has finished three years at Broward College. “But what happened to me, what happened to Gabriel, it’s still going on,” Pierre said.

And all the work group meetings. All the talk. All the work. As if foster kids mattered.

It came to nothing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17iqUsACRZM  and  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSav5qxXPkY

The Gabriel Myers bill passed the Senate Judiciary committee yesterday! .

Now – please e-mail and phone the below 3 House Representatives and urge them to schedule the Gabriel Myers bill, House Bill 1567 for a hearing.

Representative Larry Cretul – Speaker of the House 

Larry.Cretul@myfloridahouse.gov

Phone: (850) 488-1450

Phone: (352) 873-6564

Representative Ed Homan – Chair of Health and Family Services Policy Council

Ed.Homan@myfloridahouse.gov

Phone: (850) 488-3087

Phone: (813) 983-3330

Representative Faye Culp – sponsor of the bill on the House side

Faye.culp@myfloridahouse.gov

Phone: (850) 488-2770

Phone: (813) 272-2920

 —————————————————————————————————

http://www.wjhg.com/news/headlines/90770774.html

WJHG – NBC Channel 7

Apr 13, 2010

Foster Kid’s Death Sparks Changes

Almost a year after a Florida foster child hanged himself after taking psychotropic drugs state lawmakers are passing legislation to stop overmedication.

An investigation found 3-thousand kids in state care were being prescribed mind-altering drugs. Some of them were as young as two years old.

The legislation has one more stop in the Senate… but hasn’t been heard yet by the other chamber. Efforts to get the House onboard with the bill are in overdrive, with just two and a half weeks left in the legislative session.

On April 16th, 2009, seven year old Gabriel Myers hung himself in the bathroom of his foster home. Gabriel had been sexually abused and lived with four different foster families in less than a year’s time.

At the time of his death, Gabriel was on a slew of mind-altering medication. Experts believe the drugs clouded his judgment. Gabriel’s death spawned an investigation finding 13 percent of Florida’s foster kids were taking mind-altering drugs, compared to just four percent of their peers.”

Mez Pierre was placed on two psychotropic drugs when he entered the foster care system at five years old.

“When you are taken away from your family, you are upset and you are sad. Those are regular emotions. If you weren’t then you would have to question that, but the doctors said I had emotional problems and anger problems.”

Mez was on the drugs for 13 years. They influenced his judgment and gave him diabetes. Mez testified before a Senate Committee Tuesday asking lawmakers to pass legislation, requiring more oversight and counseling of kids taking mind-altering medication.

Senator Ronda Storms is one of the sponsors.

“What this bill does is says, “We’re not going to do that anymore. We are going to take a real hard look and we are going to be very, very thoughtful before we give you medication.”

In Florida kids as young as two years old have been given psychotropic drugs. Others were taking experimental drugs not yet approved by the FDA. The legislation would ban experimental drugs from being prescribed to foster kids, and all mind-alerting medication for kids younger than 11.

The legislation has one more stop in the Senate, but hasn’t been heard yet by the other chamber. Efforts to get the House onboard with the bill are in overdrive, with just two and a half weeks left in the legislative session.

Miami Herald
FLORIDA LEGISLATURE
Regulations sought for foster kids prescribed psychiatric drugs
March 2, 2010

In the wake of a Broward child’s death, state lawmakers will consider a bill designed to make it harder for child welfare workers to use mental health drugs to control foster kids.

BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER

Florida lawmakers will once again consider a measure to rein in the use of psychiatric drugs among foster children in the wake of last year’s death of a 7-year-old Broward boy who was on a cocktail of mood-altering drugs.

A new bill, filed Friday by state Sen. Ronda Storms, a Brandon Republican, would, among other things, require that foster children assent¹ to the use of psychiatric drugs. The proposed law would require caseworkers to explain to children, in a manner they can understand, why the drugs are necessary and what risks they carry.

“It’s a huge step forward for the children of Florida,” Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of Florida’s Children First, said of the provision. “It’s integral to effective treatment for children to be involved at a developmentally appropriate level.”

The requirement that foster kids be involved in their own treatment was one of scores of recommendations made by a child welfare work group of administrators from the Department of Children & Families, doctors and children’s advocates who studied the death of Gabriel Myers last April.

Gabriel, originally from Ohio, entered state care in June 2008 when his mother was found slumped in her car in a restaurant parking lot — with a narcotic pill bottles surrounding her. Gabriel hanged himself on April 16, using a retractable shower cord as a noose.

In the aftermath, The Miami Herald reported that the boy had been prescribed several anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs in the months before his death. Most of the drugs have not been approved for use with children, and some have been linked to serious side effects, including an increased risk of suicide.

While Storm’s bill tracks most of the work group’s findings, it differs in some respects. One major difference: The work group wanted each child being administered psychotropic drugs to have the benefit of a lawyer at all court appearances.

Storms’ bill requires the state to appoint guardians ad litem², or volunteer lay guardians. Storms said the guardians are qualified for the role because they already are involved in the children’s lives.

Rosenberg, who was a member of the Gabriel Myers Work Group, said “the work group concluded that attorneys are best suited to protect children’s interests when prescribing medication,” she said.

The bill would also:

· Prohibit children in state care from being involved in clinical trials designed to determine the safety or efficacy of drugs that have not yet been approved by the FDA.

· Require an independent medication review before psychiatric drugs can be administered to children 10 or younger.

· Require mental-health professionals to prepare an overall treatment plan, including the use of counseling and therapy, when children are prescribed psychiatric drugs.

“We want to give a preference to behavioral therapy,” said Storms, the bill’s sponsor. “We’re not going to just drug them through their childhood and adolescence.”

Storms said she thought the prescribing of such drugs has become a crutch for therapists, who are eschewing traditional couch chats with children. Research shows, she said, that some doctors are writing one prescription for a child every three minutes.

DCF administrators have supported the legislation, which marks the second time this decade where lawmakers have sought to crack down on mental-health drug use among kids in state care.

“With young kids, we really need to err on the side of caution,” said DCF Secretary George Sheldon, who has supported both the work group and the legislation.

State Sen. Nan Rich, a Sunrise Democrat who is vice chair of the children’s committee, said the bill will fail if lawmakers decline to set aside enough money to pay for it — especially the provision that requires guardians for foster kids who are prescribed drugs.

1. assent definition: to agree to something, especially after thoughtful consideration.
2. ad litem definition: a term used in law to refer to a party appointed by a court to act in a lawsuit on behalf of another party—for instance, a child or an incapacitated adult—who is deemed incapable of representing him or herself.

Gabriel Myers - 2007

Comments can be made here: http://tinyurl.com/florida-foster-child-drugging (short registration required) 

TALLAHASSEE — A task force investigating the apparent suicide of a 7-year-old foster child approved a list of nearly 100 recommendations concerning the use of psychiatric medications by foster children Thursday as the examination of the hanging death of Gabriel Myers continues.

The panel called for several measures to toughen accountability in the dispensing of psychotropic drugs and making sure the medications aren’t the only part of a child’s therapy.

Members of the working group also called for the Legislature to devote more resources, including the creation of a chief medical officer for the Department of Children & Families, to keep an eye on treatment for foster children.

“We need to have a better system of accountability over children who are being taken care of,” said Jim Sewell, former assistant commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and head of the task force. “… If we’re serious about making sure we’re taking care of children, we’ve got to make sure that we’re devoting funding to it.”

The recommendations include calling for tighter oversight by local DCF workers of the nonprofit organizations that handle foster care services and increased scrutiny from the agency’s central office. The panel also suggests making sure that caseworkers and caregivers get second opinions for the use of certain types and frequencies of medications.

Sewell said the panel’s recommendations, which are being put into final form after an hours-long meeting Thursday to hammer out the details, focus less on whether the psychiatric medications are over-prescribed than whether they are “properly prescribed.”…

The use of the drugs and whether the agency was obtaining proper consent from parents or courts entered the spotlight when, in the aftermath of Gabriel’s death, the department revealed that more than 3,000 foster kids were taking the medications without the legally required permission.

While the major recommendations for the Legislature involve what Sewell described as “tweaks” to the law and more resources for monitoring the use of the drugs, lawmakers are likely to more closely examine the use of psychiatric medications for foster children.

Members of the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee from both parties pledged this month to toughen laws and rules for prescribing psychiatric drugs to children in the wake of Gabriel’s death.

“We’ve got a lot deeper issues than the medical director,” Sen. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville and a member of the committee, said Thursday.

He said lawmakers could move around funding to provide the necessary money for things like the medical position, but also wanted assurances that there would be accountability for failures like Gabriel’s death.

“We need to find out what the department is going to do about this to makes sure there won’t be another Gabriel Myers situation down the line,” Hill said.

________________________________________
28,916 petition signatures:
http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY

Dr. Fred Baughman explains, “They [psychiatrists] made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive–termed them a ‘disease.’ Twenty five years of research, not deserving of the term ‘research,’ has failed to validate ADD/ADHD as a disease. Tragically–the ‘epidemic’ having grown from 500 thousand in 1985 to between 5 and 7 million today–this remains the state of the ‘science’ of ADHD.”⁴

We at CCHR Florida are very concerned with these numbers.  Why are so many foster children being diagnosed with mental disorders?

Per the Equal Justice Foundation’s, “No Child Left Behind” Reverend Ruth Peterson (2003),

“When a child resists bonding with the foster or adoptive parents, they are immediately admitted into therapy for psychological problems. And, at times, if the child becomes violent or combative, or prone to tantrums due to their anger at being the focal point of all the family destruction, they are placed into a mental health facility and subsequently started on medication known as “psychotropic” medication, or mind-altering drugs to make them more docile, and easier to manage and control.”

‘This is quite common in nursing homes for the elderly, if the patient is labeled as ‘combatant’ or ‘combative.’ I have seen the results of those types of ‘psychotropic’ drugs and it is horrible. They rob the patient of any and all humane feelings.’

‘Any child, who has been deprived of what belongs to them by birth and nature, will invariably become combative at some stage during the transition of losing their own past lives, no matter how good or bad it may have been. One child bit the finger off a school nurse as she was administering medication to him.” ⁵

Central Florida University confirms, “Since 1986, the number of foster children has increased by 90 percent in Central Florida…Florida ranks 35th out of the 50 states in child well being.” ⁶

St. Petersburg Times claimed that Florida’s DCF has many problems ranging from out-of-date records to the lack of a judge’s consent to place a child on psychotropic mediation.⁷

Jacksonville News reported,

“Members of the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee from both parties said the state needed to toughen laws and rules for prescribing psychiatric drugs to children in the wake of the hanging death of Gabriel Myers and an ongoing examination by a Department of Children and Families task force’

‘…DCF acknowledged that the state has tried before to get handle on the number of children taking psychiatric drugs…”

‘It’s the same problem over and over and over again,’ said Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico.  Storms said legislators would need to follow up on any laws it passes to ensure that the initiative would be more successful than past changes to the law.” ⁸

Thank you, Senator Storms, for speaking out to protect our foster children.

DCF of Florida defines the rights of foster children:

You have the right:

To Know Your Rights

• To be given a copy of this document,

• To have your rights explained to you in words you can understand, and

• To have your rights explained when you enter into care and every time you move to a different placement.

To Have Your Rights Respected

The people responsible for your care and protection must respect your civil and legal rights.

To Privacy

• To have your privacy protected,

• To send and receive mail without anyone reading it unless the judge says someone else can open your mail to protect your safety, and

• To make telephone calls at reasonable times, unless the judge says you cannot.

To Have Your Property Protected

• To have your property (for example, your clothes, books, electronics, money and other things you own) kept safe where you live.

• To bring your property with you when you move,

• To be told how money being held by the Department is being used.

• To ask that your money be used for specific things, and

• To ask that your money be saved for future uses.

To Live With Your Parents or Caregivers

unless a person from the Department and a judge determines that you must be moved.

To Live In A Safe Place

• To live in a safe home where no one will touch you without your permission, scare you, or hurt you, and

• To live in a home where you will not get into trouble for telling people that your rights or safety are not being protected.

To Understand Documents You Are Asked to Sign

• To have any person who asks you to fill out or sign a paper explain it to you, and

• To understand what you are signing and why you are being asked to sign it.

To Complain about Your Care or Services

• To make a grievance (a complaint) to the Department about how you are being cared for by your foster parents, services worker, or other people providing you services,

• To make a grievance to the Department if any of your rights are violated,

• To make a grievance to your community-based care provider, and

• To have a lawyer or other person assist you in making a grievance or complaint.

To Be Heard In Court

• To attend court hearings involving your care, and

• To tell the judge what is happening to you and what you want.

To Have Representation In Court

• To have a guardian ad litem appointed for you by the judge,

• To have the guardian ad litem tell the judge what you want, in addition to what your guardian ad litem thinks is best for you,

• To obtain an attorney of your choice, or to ask the judge to appoint one for you, and

• To have the immediate and unlimited ability to meet with your guardian ad litem and attorney.

To Medical Care

• To be taken to doctors and dentists, including eye doctors, for medical evaluation and treatment.

To Education

• To attend school, and

• To obtain special educational services if you need them.

To Permanency

• To have all efforts in court made without delay because time is of the essence (very important).

• To have a permanent home or family.

To Same Rights As Everyone Else

 • To enjoy the same rights established in the Constitutions of the United States and Florida as every other person in the state. That means you have the right to individual dignity, liberty, privacy, pursuit of happiness, and the protection of your civil and legal rights.⁹

Yes.  Foster children have the right to the pursuit of happiness.  Let us help them achieve this right.  For additional information and help on children see our website’s section “Help for Children.”

RESOURCES:

1. Hunter College, Foster Care Maintenance Payments (2008) http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/downloads/foster-care-maintenance-payments.pdf
2. Adoption.com, “Reimbursement of Non-Recurring Adoption Expenses for Special Needs Children” http://library.adoption.com/articles/reimbursement-of-non-recurring-adoption-expenses-for-special-needs-children.html accessed November 2, 2009
3. Florida’s Department of Children and Families, http://www.dcf.state.fl.us/adoption/specialneeds.shtml accessed November 2, 2009
4. Dr. Fred Baughman, “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” http://www.adhdfraud.org/ accessed November 2, 2009
5. Equal Justice Foundation http://www.ejfi.org/family/family-98.htm accessed October 31, 2009, original author, Ruth Peterson, “No Child Left Behind” (2003)
6. University of Central Florida, The Center for Community Partnerships College of Health & Public Affairs, “The Economics of Child Foster Care in Central Florida” http://www.cohpa.ucf.edu/ccp/library/fostercare_study.pdf accessed November 2, 2009, original source: Child Welfare League of America
7. St. Petersburg Times, “DCF’s drug records suspect” (2009) http://psychrights.org/Articles/090529TampaBayDrugRecordsSuspect.htm
8. Jacksonville News, (2009) “Florida lawmakers pledge action on psychiatric drugs in foster care” http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2009-10-07/story/florida_lawmakers_pledge_action_on_psychiatric_drugs_in_foster_care
9. Department of Children and Families http://www.dcf.state.fl.us/publications/fsp/brochures/fsp5320.pdf, accessed October 31, 2009

“Why would a child as young as 3 ever be on mind altering drugs?”

“Well for the past 8 months the troubleshooters have poured through reams of state documents and discovered that thousands of foster kids are on mind altering drugs.  Many of these children are barely in kindergarten.  Somc are even toddlers…”

Watch the NBC video to find out more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISFPJL66p4c

This young lady has experienced much loss in her life, but she presents herself  in such a way that you are happy for her because she is finally able to tell her story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpYoDx53-Vs

A Mother’s Hope

7 News Investigation

Reported and Produced by: Patrick Fraser

Watch Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-UlOQlg9X4

Patrick Fraser

Earlier this year a 7-year-old boy in state custody prescribed mind altering drugs threatened to kill himself, then he did. This summer another child on powerful drugs also threatened to kill himself, his mother called (a channel 7 helpline called  ”Help Me Howard”), what happened after that? Tonight here is Patrick Fraser with a story we call a mothers hope.

WSVN — When I first met Anthony he was not the child who had been described to me.
Hope Estrada, Anthony’s Mother: “I’ve been told by some doctors in Key West that I’m raising the next Charles Manson, OK?”

One doctor said he was mentally retarded, another said he was bi-polar. He has been sent to psychiatric hospitals, slapped in straight jackets and given mind altering drugs. The affect of it all on an 8-year-old is not surprising.
Hope Estrada: “The other day when he was Baker Acted and they restrained him, he told me, ‘Mom, I want to kill myself, I don’t want to live like this, I can’t control myself.’”

Hope says she was told a few weeks ago, by the State of Florida the best solution is to give up on Anthony.
Hope Estrada: “Basically I’ve been told, you know, move on with your life, and give Anthony to the state and let him become a ward of the state. I’m not going to do that, I refuse to give in.”

And so, after contacting dozens of people from the president on down she called Help Me Howard and we knew this case required an expert.

Andrea Moore

30 Second Video Here “A lot of attention on the psychiatric community”

Complete video of the news conference here, with questions from reporters

The press conference was held following the suicide of 7-year-old Gabriel Myers.

Gabriel

In a review of Gabriel’s case files, it was determined that he had been prescribed several psych drugs that had not been accurately entered  into the DCF database and there was no indication of a signed parental consent form or a court order authorizing the administration of the drugs, which is required by Florida law. 

Foster care organizations throughout the state have been asked to review every foster child’s record to determine: how many children are on psych drugs; if that information was recorded accurately in the Department’s database; and if there was a signed consent form or court order authorizing the use of the drug in the child’s case file.

Sign the pledge to stop psychiatric harm and abuse of children: www.cchrflorida.org/pledge