Youth in foster care: Highlighting the importance of youth engagement in mental health treatment decisions

Youth in foster care are disproportionately prescribed antipsychotic and other psychotropic medications for perceived mental health challenges, compared with non-foster youth. Recent research has illuminated how children and youth from foster care are adversely affected by this problematic trend and the efficacy of federal and state policy mechanisms to address this problem. However, substantially less is known about how youth in foster care perceive and value interactions with mental health providers, specific to their own behavioral health needs and treatment. Research about youth in foster care often omits voices from those with lived experience in the child welfare and mental health systems. This qualitative study encompasses data from Deliberative Discussion group interviews conducted with youth and young adults (ages 18–28) who had recent involvement with the child welfare system and who had received mental health treatment during this involvement. Four key themes – the need to make room for youth voice, unrealistic expectations, consideration of the long term, and the need for multiple trusted expectations − emerged from the data and can inform the research literature about valuing the voices of those with lived experience, especially as they pertain to ensuring authentic intentional engagement between mental health providers and their youth clients.