Abstract
This paper focuses on the administration of psychotropic drugs to children who are unable to
adjust to a group home setting. In this paper, I intend to clarify how staff in foster care facilities provides
medical care to its inmates. The research was done by analyzing field notes of interviews with staff and
observation of inmates at a foster care facility. According to the results of my research, those children
who had been examined by medical institutions and prescribed psychotropic drugs by a physician were
unable to adjust to the group home setting.
Although the facility staff had reservations about the prescribing and administration of
psychotropic drugs to the children, it was clear that they were resigned to doing so in order to facilitate
operations and management of the facility. Further, one staff viewed the systematic abolition of
corporal punishment as an evolution in medical care and perceived psychotropic drugs to be a means of
enhancing communication between children and adults- a fact that prompted them to accept the use of
such drugs.
Suggestions about alternatives to the use of psychotropic drugs included creating an environment
where facility staff could form closer bonds with both the children as well as the adults taking care of
them, and exploring new measures including the foster parent option. However, there have been cases
where the children were unable to remain where they were placed because they created problems, and
there may be a case for the use of psychotropic drugs that can possibly ameliorate the kind of negative
environment where children are sent from one facility to another, by calming the children down. Even
so, facility staff had mixed feelings about administering such drugs.
