WARNING: The Antipsychotic Drugging of Texas Foster Care and Medicaid Children Continues
Medicaid children in Texas are being given powerful antipsychotic drugs and in most cases for non-medically accepted uses. Children are often being prescribed the wrong dose, are too young to receive the drugs, being given too many drugs at one time.
In spite of a decade of attempted reforms by Texas on the drugging of foster and Medicaid children, this situation continues unabated.
Suicide and Mass Violence: Why We Must All Insist on an Investigation of Mind-Altering Psychotropic Drugs
In the wake of the recent spate of mass shootings, there’s a story you probably missed. It’s about a potential mass shooting that never happened. It was thwarted by a grandmother. (It’s important to note that the defendant has only been accused, not convicted)
The case illustrates why more mental health treatment is the wrong answer to curbing violence.
On Friday, the US Justice Department issued a press release about the arrest of a young man accused of making false representations to a gun dealer while purchasing an AK-47. It also credited a grandmother for thwarting a potential mass shooting.
School Mental Health – Know Your Rights!
Due to Texas legislation passed this year, our school system is undergoing a change. With threat assessment teams and an increased focus on school mental health, parents need to be prepared for intrusive questions, attempts to get them to consent to mental health screening and mental health referrals for their children. Parents with school-aged children need to know their rights.
What Led to the ‘Broken’ Foster Care System in Texas
Early into his tenure as governor, Greg Abbott said he was committed to overhauling the state’s struggling Department of Family and Protective Services, which oversees the foster care system. He was particularly focused on reducing child deaths as a result of abuse and neglect. From 2010 to 2014, 144 children died despite the fact that CPS was investigating claims of abuse in those cases. Back in 2015, Abbott’s office committed an extra $40 million to child welfare services.
Despite Warnings, the Texas Legislature Plans to Privatize Much of the Child Welfare System
Under pressure from the governor, advocates and a federal court, lawmakers are moving at breakneck speed to address the state’s failing child welfare system. But in doing so, they may be rushing into a privatization scheme that could plunge Child Protective Services (CPS) into crisis again.
What Happens After a Life Spent in the Texas Foster Care System?
It was early July 2001, and Trish Virgil was going to make a lemon meringue pie. “In our family, 12 years old meant that you get to finally learn how to make homemade pies,” she says now, smiling.
Texas Foster Care System Faces Concerns About Over Medication of Children
Holding a scrapbook inches from his face, Jessy Dussetschleger flips through pages and pages of pictures from his childhood. Smiling and tapping his adoptive mother on her shoulder, he points to a photo of himself with his siblings at a birthday party.
Senate panel proposes $75.3 million to start fixing Child Protective Services
A Texas legislative panel is recommending an infusion of $75.3 million in emergency funding for the Department of Family and Protective Services to allow for caseworker raises and hire more people. But agency Commissioner Hank Whitman won’t get everything he requested.
“Beat on me,” foster care chief tells lawmakers. And they do.
The man Gov. Greg Abbott has put in charge of fixing Texas’ dysfunctional foster care system told state legislators on Wednesday he’d gladly take the brunt of their anger if it meant they’d give him more money to catch up on a backlog of 2,844 at-risk children awaiting the agency’s assistance.
State leaders order Child Protective Services overhaul
Gov. Greg Abbott and other state leaders ordered the Department of Family and Protective Services Wednesday to ramp up efforts to protect endangered foster children and curb the backlog of ones waiting for homes.