At Last, Justice
In March of 2024, within three years of filing their initial complaint, the Plaintiffs and Defendants reached a settlement that is currently before the Court for approval.
“The goal is always to come to a place where both sides feel comfortable with the reforms that are going to be implemented,” said Madeleine about the settlement process. “The most important thing is to really engage in careful, thorough, and reasoned negotiations with the defending state and agencies, and we are confident that we achieved that here.”
The settlement identifies three core sets of reforms to address the three main issues described above.
The first reform requires Maine to update the medical records of children in foster care in a timely manner and ensure that their key medical records move with the child to their foster placements. It also improves the timeliness of the communication of these records to relevant parties. When Bryan C. was admitted to a crisis stabilization unit for suicidal threats and aggression, the complaint alleges that there was a one-month period in which his clinicians did not have access to his psychotropic medication records. Since caseworkers will now be required to respond to requests from medical providers within seven business days, these reforms should help prevent the lag experienced by Bryan C.’s clinicians.
The second reform requires a meaningful informed consent process, including a consent form for the prescription of all psychotropic medications. The process includes the ability for youth age 14 or older to consent — or decline to consent — to a psychotropic medication after a detailed conversation with their prescriber about the medication. Seventeen-year-old Kendall P.*, another Plaintiff in the lawsuit, requested to stop taking her psychotropic prescriptions on multiple occasions but was ignored. Under this new policy, her consent would have been mandatory. Even when children are too young to provide informed consent on their own, this policy still requires that they are informed about the medication and given an opportunity to discuss it and express their concerns.
The last core reform achieved in the settlement establishes a clinical review team of medical professionals who will both prospectively and retrospectively evaluate psychotropic prescriptions. They will assess prescriptions’ necessity and appropriateness, serving as a check and balance on psychotropic prescribing practices.
These new practices contained in the agreed-upon settlement will create stronger protections for the roughly 2,500 foster youth in Maine. “The State has agreed to real reforms and committed to meaningful oversight to make sure it makes good on those promises,” said Jack Woodcock, an attorney with Bernstein Shur. “That is something to be applauded.”
