The National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) invites you to participate in a campaign to end the inappropriate and harmful sedation of tens of thousands of foster children. High doses of psychotropic “antipsychotic” drugs produce lethargic, “zoned out” children, preventing their normal development. Medical guidelines do not sanction such sedation. The year 2012 may be the year that federal and state governments act to curb excessive drugging of our nation’s foster children.
Two state agencies and several advocacy groups have reached an interim agreement to develop a framework for reforms in the Washington state mental health system for children and youth enrolled in Medicaid. The agreement temporarily suspends litigation in a class action lawsuit filed against the Department of Social and Health Services and the Health Care Authority. View press release
By Bryn Martyna
In March 2010, President Obama signed into law comprehensive health care reform legislation. The two federal laws at the heart of this reform, which address virtually every aspect of health care provision in the US, are commonly referred to collectively as the "Affordable Care Act."
The California Bar Foundation recently approved a $15,000 grant to support NCYL’s Rural Foster Youth Training Project. The funding allows NCYL to address the special needs of rural California foster youth in accessing quality healthcare and educational opportunities.
Sept. 28, 2011 - Advocates are celebrating an agreement that will provide intensive home- and community-based mental health services for California children in foster care or at risk of removal from their families. The agreement in the class-action suit Katie A. v. Bonta comes nine years after the case was first filed.
The parties to TR v. Dreyfus, a class-action lawsuit seeking to ensure poor children’s access to adequate mental health care in their homes and communities, are in mediation in an effort to reach a settlement.
Youth spend less time in detention and are less likely to get in trouble with the law after participating in Alameda County's Collaborative Mental Health Court.
NCYL and other mental health advocates were rebuffed in their efforts to save a model program that provided intensive community-based services to nearly 5,000 adults with serious mental illness.
