The District’s foster care officials were right to refuse to give a mentally ill boy his medication after the boy’s biological mother objected, the District’s Court of Appeals has ruled.
In April 2009, the 12-year-old boy, identified in court papers only as “G.K.,” had a breakdown.
Having been born to a mentally ill and drug addicted mother, G.K. had bounced around the foster care system his entire life and suffered from bipolar, attention deficit and oppositional defiant disorders.
Officials at Children’s Hospital called his birth mother and asked for permission to give him medication.
The mother refused.
“God will heal him,” she told hospital officials.
A private lawyer filed an emergency order to get the city to put G.K. on his meds.
The judge agreed.
But in a precedent-setting decision, a three-judge panel ruled that the lower judge overstepped her authority.
Even neglectful parents like G.K.’s mom “retain certain residual parental rights,” Associate Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby wrote. “The child’s well-being is paramount, however, and sometimes the family court must overrule the parent’s prerogative in order to protect the best interests of the child,” the 27-page decision states. “But that exercise of discretion must be founded upon correct legal standards, and in this case, the trial judge erroneously discounted the validity of G.K.’s parents’ residual parental rights.”
The appeals court ruling still leaves open the possibility that foster care bureaucrats can take over medical decisions in an emergency.
Children’s rights experts said the decision brings much-needed clarity to the city’s chaotic foster care system.
“I think this decision is good in that it regulates when and how to give children psychotropic medication,” University of Baltimore law professor Rachel Camp said. “It’s an epidemic problem.” Nationwide, between 2 and 4 percent of children are on such medicine, Camp said. Between 15 and 30 percent of kids in foster care are on the medications.
