For Immediate Release: December 1, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Government Accountability Office testified about their soon-to-be released study showing that foster care children are often being overmedicated with psychotropic drugs – incredibly powerful medications that primarily act on the central nervous system and affect brain functioning. The GAO study confirms other testimony, anecdotal evidence and previous studies that Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) examined and worked to address in the 2008 landmark foster care law that he authored – the “Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act” (Public Law 110-351). The GAO study highlights a particularly worrisome trend of overprescribing psychotropic drugs in infant foster children (children under 1 year old) and also wide variance of effectiveness in dealing with the issue state-to-state.

“This is a serious problem. We need to help states find and implement effective solutions that protect this vulnerable population,” Congressman McDermott said. “Three years ago, the Fostering Connections law got the ball rolling by requiring states to create health coordination plans for foster children that included oversight of prescription drugs. But with time, we have learned that more needs to be done by states to monitor the medications that foster children receive, especially in the case of psychotropic drugs. It is for this reason that I recently authored a provision, which became law, that strengthens the mental health protections in the 2008 law.”

McDermott was successful in getting a measure related to foster care drug management included in the “Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act” that was signed into law on September 30, 2011. The provision builds on the health coordination requirements of the Fostering Connections law and requires that states create protocols and actively monitor the use of psychotropic medications. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is now working with states to implement those measures.

“This is not a problem that is going to be solved overnight,” McDermott added. “Requiring states to establish practices that protect children under their supervision is the first step towards developing evidence-based standards that could eventually serve as a model for federal policy.”

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Follow McDermott on Twitter: @RepJimMcDermott.