foster children
lborkowski | August 28, 2014The San Jose Mercury News has begun publishing a multi-part series on the alarming use of psychotropic medications among youth in California's foster-care system. Karen de Sá writes:
With alarming frequency, foster and health care providers are turning to a risky but convenient remedy to control the behavior of thousands of troubled kids: numbing them with psychiatric drugs that are untested on and often not approved for children.
An investigation by this newspaper found that nearly 1 out of every 4 adolescents in California’s foster care system is receiving these drugs — 3 times the rate for…
lborkowski | May 2, 2014A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Jennifer Brown and Christopher N. Osher in the Denver Post: Prescription Kids (a six-part investigative series on the extensive prescribing of psychotropic drugs to Colorado foster children; via Reporting on Health)
Lydia DePillis at Washington Post's Wonkblog: The U.S. still spends way more on teen pregnancy than family planning
David Moberg at In These Times: Meet the 'Missing' Workers ("More than 5 million Americans have given up hope of a job. Who are they?")
William Laurance at Yale Environment 360: Will Increased Food Production Devour Tropical…
sastyk | July 3, 2012A little while back we took our current foster sons to visit the university where Eric teaches physics. The boys had never visited a university before, and were curious about who goes there and what they do when they are there. This led to a discussion of the value of a college education, what kinds of jobs require college, and what kind don't.
From here, we segued to "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and it was here that the enormous gap between my biological children, trained from birth to see an adult profession/vocation, mixed perhaps with informal economic activities, as…
lborkowski | November 15, 2011A few thought-provoking pieces I've read this week demonstrate the extent to which the US is failing to invest in our next generation. John Schmid of the Journal Sentinel points out that 44 other countries have lower infant mortality rates than the US (by UNICEF ranking), and we're tied for 45th place with Montenegro and Slovakia. Our overall national rate - 6.06 per 1,000 live births, according to the CIA World Factbook - conceals a great deal of variability by state and city, though. (See the Annie E. Casey Foundation's map for details on state-to-state differences.) Schmid zooms in on…