SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 New) –An ABC investigation uncovers disturbing numbers on how many foster kids nationwide may be severely overmedicated. Some children receiving the anti-depressants and antipsychotic drugs were under the age of two. Utah experts say not here.
The Utah Division of Child and Family Services have protection in place that other states lack. Chris Chytreus, RN, is the manager of the Foster and Healthy Children manager for the state. She says what was uncovered by ABC is a disturbing reality nationwide. The year-long investigation turned up startling numbers with more than a quarter of kids on some kind of psychotropic drug. "It’s heartbreaking when you it and it's hard. It is what it is like for a lot of foster children, but in our state it's different."
It’s different, she says, because Utah has added another layer of health protection for Utah foster children to ensure they don't end up like those featured in the Diane Sawyer report. Each child is not only assigned a case worker, they are also assigned a nurse. “It just puts a double check in place. Instead of just having a social worker who is working to care for all of the child's needs you have a second set of eyes."
That second set of eyes constantly checks health records. The nurses also meet with foster children, families and physicians to ensure any medication prescribed is actually needed. She says often times medication isn't what the doctor ordered, therapy is. "Grief issues can replicate ADHD and the children; they don't know how to get out that anxiety and anger.”
Chytreus says what is perceived by some foster parents as uncontrollable rages, and behavior, may also be nothing more than a cry for help. "If you take a child form their parents and then you place them in a home of strangers they are going to fight and they are going to do whatever to see are you going to give up on me? Are you going to send me back? Am I an unwanted child?"
She says if one of the more than 27-hundred Utah foster children does need medication, there are guidelines set to determine what that medication will be, and safety measure to ensure that every time a child changes homes, and doctors, they aren't receiving new prescriptions on top of old ones.
The issue of over prescribed medication is one that has been studied by Utah health officials for several years which is why experts say the states’ policy is more proactive. Chytreus says improvements can still be made. The case load for nurses in the foster care system is high. There is only one nurse for every one hundred children.
