Each Monday on the Stability, Permanency and Adoption blog we will provide a selection of news from the past week that you may have missed.
Today’s news round up:
From the Chillicothe Gazette, New Private Adoption Agency Focuses on Teen Demographic. “Sojourners, a youth development organization that serves children in foster care with the hopes of providing them with the tools they need to be successful after they turn 18, found an adoption program to be a perfect fit.” Read the article in full here.
American Indian Children in Minnesota Disproportionately Placed in Foster Care. From the Twin Cities Daily Planet.

[A 2010 MN Department of Human Services] study found that American Indian children were more than eight times as likely to be subject of a neglect report…The report also found that American Indian children were placed in out of home care in 2008 at a rate “more than twice that of any other group, and [were] more than 12 times more likely than a white child to spend time in placement.” Read the full article here.
One of the biggest news stories last week was about the Ohio 8-year old removed from CPS because child welfare workers determined his mother was medically neglecting her son’s health due to extreme obesity. Several news outlets published the AP story including the San Francisco Chronicle.
Diane Sawyer did a special ABC World News Tonight investigative report on children in foster care and psychotropic medication. “ABC News was given exclusive access to the GAO report, which capped off a nationwide yearlong investigation by ABC News on the overuse of the most powerful mind-altering drugs on many of the country’s nearly 425,000 foster children. The GAO’s report, based on a two-year-long investigation, looked at five states — Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas. Thousands of foster children were being prescribed psychiatric medications at doses higher than the maximum levels approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in these five states alone. And hundreds of foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time despite absolutely no evidence supporting the simultaneous use or safety of this number of psychiatric drugs taken together.” The story that accompanies the show is available here.