Tuesday, September 1, 2009

DCF psychotropic meds report

In the aftermath of the tragic Gabriel Myers case, DCF set out to review the numbers of kids in the system who are on psychotropic medication.

I hope to study the report more and comment further, but for the moment I'll give you the link to it:

Meds report

Unless I just don't know how to read anymore, the numbers for Orange County seem absurdly under-reported.

Slightly related: I often wonder if the compulsion to perform a CBHA (Comprehensive Behavioral Health Assessment) on each and every child in DCF care leads inevitably to many, many more diagnoses of mental health problems than there ought to be, and perhaps wouldn't be, if either (a) the CBHAs were never done in the first place, or (b) the first such assessment were done by licensed doctors and not the folks who routinely produce the CBHAs.

1 comment:

robert said...

be critical with that meds report. i sat in on all but two of the panel hearings and a lot of anecdotal evidence testimony has been adopted as "findings." the panel attempted to be careful to use language that made it clear that they weren't overstating the case, but people do not always read as closely as writers would like.