Probe into death of student with autism finds school violated rules

A preliminary investigation into the death of a 13-year-old student with autism at a Northern California private school has found the school violated state rules when its staff put him in a face-down restraint position for nearly an hour. The California Department of Education found "sufficient evidence" that staffers at Guiding Hands School in El Dorado Hills violated multiple state rules governing how and when physical restraints can be used on students, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The boy, identified as Max Benson, became unresponsive while being held in a "prone restraint" for nearly an hour at the school on Nov. 28 and died a day later at UC Davis Medical Center.

More >> Probe into death of student with autism finds school violated rules

Drugging Our Kids: Foster care bill targets excessive prescribing of psychiatric drugs

The voices of foster youth and their advocates overcame the powerful physicians lobby in the Capitol on Monday, as a bill to identify and investigate California doctors who overprescribe psychiatric drugs to traumatized foster children won a key Senate vote.

More >> Drugging Our Kids: Foster care bill targets excessive prescribing of psychiatric drugs

Responding to reports of drugged foster youth, California lawmakers propose greater oversight

At a hearing Tuesday, California lawmakers will examine why the state's foster children are being prescribed psychiatric drugs at three times the rate of other youth.

More >> Responding to reports of drugged foster youth, California lawmakers propose greater oversight

More >> Hundreds more foster kids given drugs than first disclosed

Rampant medication use found among L.A. County foster, delinquent kids

Los Angeles County officials are allowing the use of powerful psychiatric drugs on far more children in the juvenile delinquency and foster care systems than they had previously acknowledged, according to data obtained by The Times through a Public Records Act request.

More >> Rampant medication use found among L.A. County foster, delinquent kids

How A Nuisance Ordinance Could Threaten Housing for Current, Former Foster Youth

How A Nuisance Ordinance Could Threaten Housing for Current, Former Foster Youth

The Oakland City Council’s unanimous adoption of an amended Nuisance Eviction Ordinance (NEO) threatens the stability of some of our most vulnerable current and former foster youth, particularly those who have been or are currently victims of commercial sexual exploitation.