Report 2015-131 Recommendation 25 Responses

Report 2015-131: California's Foster Care System: The State and Counties Have Failed to Adequately Oversee the Prescription of Psychotropic Medications to Children in Foster Care (Release Date: August 2016)

Recommendation #25 To: Sonoma County

To improve its oversight of foster children prescribed psychotropic medications, Sonoma County should update its policies to describe methods for obtaining and documenting in the foster children's case files parental consents for psychotropic medications.

6-Month Agency Response

FY&C has convened a Psychotropic Medication Monitoring Workgroup that is developing, among other monitoring issues related to use of psychotropic medications by foster youth, policies and procedures to obtain and document parental consents for psychotropic medication. FY&C has developed a practice for obtaining parent signatures on JV-220(A) and (B) form for those prescriptions for which parents are able to consent. If the parent is physically available to provide a written consent, he or she will do so on the bottom of page 1 of the JV-220(A) or (B). If only available via telephone, the parent will be asked to give verbal consent and the social worker will document the consent in both the delivered service log in CWS/CMS and will note the verbal consent on the bottom of page 1 of the JV-220(A) or (B).

Completion Date: December 2016
Response Date: February 2017

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Fully Implemented

60-Day Agency Response

Estimated Completion Date: March 1, 2017
Response Date: October 2016

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2015-131

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.