Hi, Rebecca--
My contact with foster children is primarily throgh in-home behaviroal health services in Southern, NJ. I cannot comment on the use/over/under use of medication. What I can comment on is severely inadequate trauma recognition and trauma-informed treatment and interventions across systems--lack of recognition of trauma symptoms/trauma effects and punitive responses to them; lack of preparation by the child welfare system for foster families for the level of severity of behavioral problems, often trauma induced, and lack of education about trauma-effects and trauma-informed, trauma-spfecific interventions in the home environment. These failures lead to foster partents terminating the care and further traumatizing the child with yet another placement. The courts are grossly trauma-uninformed and repeatedly retraumatize children with trauma-uninformed custody, visitation, and reunification. Betty Lee Davis, Ph.D., LCSW