Psycotropic Medications

Last night we attended our annual refresher on the uses, care and storage of medications with an emphasis on those used for behavior modification in small children. Here's all you need to know: Keep all medicines locked up. Keep each persons medications segregated. Keep fanatically accurate details of the dispensing information. Ask 1000 questions before starting a child on a new med or before altering an existing med plan. Make sure the psychiatrist, the general practitioner, the school nurse and the pharmacist are all your best friend and that they talk to each other. Many of the drugs used to treat behavior have what used to be called "street value" -- the new term is "school bus value". Kids learn really early that they can make money by sharing their medicines.

The training that we attended lasted two hours but we didn't cover much more than this. The upside is that it counts as two hours of training for each of us. We are required to have 30 hours each every year.