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TALLAHASSEE — One of the largest providers of inpatient psychiatric care for Florida foster kids successfully pushed for an amendment to a bill that will make it easier for group homes and treatment centers to medicate foster children without the consent of a parent or judge.
Psychiatric Solutions, which operates 13 residential treatment programs in Florida, proposed an amendment to state Sen. Ronda Storms' bill that will allow the company and others to administer mental health drugs to young foster children for three days without the consent of a parent or judge.
The legislation was prompted by the 2009 death of a 7-year-old Margate foster child, Gabriel Myers, who had been given psychiatric drugs and hung himself.
Under current law, and under the original bill that Storms, a Valrico Republican, proposed, children younger than 11 in the care of the Department of Children & Families cannot be given such drugs without the consent of a parent, or a state judge in cases where the child's parents have lost their parental rights.
In her bill, Storms proposes that caregivers for foster children must present a ''compelling government interest'' that it is in the "child's best interest," and requires that DCF get an independent review to medicate children younger than 11.
In an e-mail to DCF's legislative affairs director, Jim R. Henry, the director of Manatee Palms Youth Services, which is owned by Psychiatric Solutions, suggests that the state has, by definition, a compelling interest in allowing children to be medicated at treatment centers, since the kids are presumed to be mentally ill.
Storms' bill requires that doctors receive informed consent from a parent or guardian before administering mental health drugs. But the bill, as amended by Storms on Tuesday, makes exceptions: Doctors may begin the use of psychiatric drugs, without consent or a court order, if a child is in a mental hospital, a crisis stabilization unit, a residential treatment center or therapeutic group home. In such settings, DCF must seek a court order to administer the drugs within three days of beginning the medication.
Storms said Friday she did not amend her bill to benefit the company. "It is true lobbyists come to see me," She said. "No one said, hey will you do this from PsychSolutions, or whatever. I'm not trying to do it for any single entity's benefit. I am saying I want to fend off as much of the opposition as I can, so it gets through."
Critics of the amendment note that children in such institutional settings are the most at risk of being inappropriately medicated.
In May 2009, during DCF's investigation into the use of psychotropic drugs, the agency reported that 26 percent of children in group homes or other institutional settings were being given mental-health drugs, compared with 21 percent of children in foster homes and 4 percent of children living with relatives.
Jim Sewell, a special assistant to DCF Secretary George Sheldon chaired a task force last year that looked into the use of mental health drugs among foster kids. He said the bill's language was not ideal, but through rule-making the agency will be able to "put things into place that ensure the protection of kids.''
But another task force member expressed misgivings. "The fact that a child needs residential treatment is not per se sufficient to say they need medication," said Robin Rosenberg of Florida's Children First. "I think there is too much potential for abuse."
Storms, who has been extremely vocal about her concern that doctors are relying far too heavily on drugs to manage troubled foster kids, said doctors still will have to seek consent from a judge, and the bill will better protect children.
She said she added the amendment to drum up more support for the bill, as she had received a number of calls from concerned treatment centers that they wouldn't be able to medicate children who were hurting themselves.
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