psychotropic drugs

See how each state child welfare agency monitors use of psych meds for its children and youth in government custody.

Four young adults speak to The Imprint about how psychotropic medication use affected their tumultuous childhoods in Los Angeles County.

Antipsychotics prescribed to foster youth in California have shown a remarkable decline in the years since reform measures passed.

New data offers rare insight into a long-running national public health concern: the frequent and sometimes haphazard prescribing of psychiatric drugs to foster youth. Part II of an ongoing series.

Part 1 of an Imprint series reveals spotty enforcement of federal requirements to monitor psychotropic prescriptions for foster youth.

Bill Grimm, a long-time attorney with the Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law (NCYL), passed away on April 2 after a year-long battle with brain cancer. He was 69. Over a 40-year career, Grimm helped forge change for many troubled child welfare systems across the country through trailblazing litigation and legislative advocacy, including in Maryland, Arkansas, Utah, Washington, Nevada and California, among others.

In his response to reporter Karen de Sá’s searing expose of the misuse and overuse of psychiatric medication on foster children in general and one case from his own institution in particular, Joseph Costa, CEO of Hillsides, serves up all the usual buzzwords and boilerplate.

The Imprint is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 12 former foster youths who completed congressional internships.

The multimedia series “Drugging Our Kids,” published by the San Jose Mercury News, won the Edward R. Murrow Award for an online news video documentary by a large online organization last week.