Medicating Children in Foster Care

State child welfare systems are moving children from foster care to permanency faster and in greater numbers than ever. At the same time, we recognize that these systems struggle to achieve positive outcomes for the children in their care who have complex social-emotional, behavioral and mental health problems. Children in foster care represent only three percent of children covered by Medicaid, yet, based on a study of pharmacy claims in 16 States, foster children enrolled in Medicaid were prescribed antipsychotic medications at nearly nine times the rate of other children receiving Medicaid. While medications can be an important component of treatment, strengthened oversight of psychotropic medication use is necessary in order to responsibly and effectively attend to the clinical needs of children who have experienced maltreatment.

Defining Adoption Competency: Please tell C.A.S.E. what you think!

We would like to invite you to become part of a very important initiative.

Since 2008, Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.) has provided national leadership to a project to answer the call of the adoption community to build accessible, adoption competent mental health services across the country.

As a first step, C.A.S.E. convened a group of nationally recognized experts, including parents, who identified the competencies that mental health practitioners need – the knowledge, skills, and values that they should have. These experts helped to develop a definition of an adoption competent mental health professional.  A curriculum based on the competencies has been developed and the first group of mental health professionals is completing their training to be adoption competent in their clinical practices. 

Adoptive parents consistently report that their greatest post adoption support need is “mental health services provided by someone who knows adoption." We often hear parents, adopted persons, practitioners, and researchers say that services need to be “adoption competent” or “adoption sensitive.” Although the terms “adoption competent” and “adoption sensitive” are frequently used, there are not standardized, well-accepted definitions for these terms.

The definition that we are currently using is based on what experts think, but we want to hear from you about whether this definition is the right one.

If you are an adoptive parent, an adopted person, a birth parent, a member of an adoptive family, or a member of a family affected by adoption, please tell us what you think an "adoption competent mental health professional" is. Click here to take survey