A researcher took an inside look at psychiatric drug prescribing for foster youth and one state’s attempts at oversight: Here’s what she learned

Dr. Katie Gibson — a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago’s Crown School of Social Work — summed up her research in her 211-page dissertation, which was later published in excerpted form by the peer-reviewed journal Social Service Review. To learn how the drugs were “framed in policy and regulated in practice,” Gibson conducted an ethnographic study, sitting side-by-side with prescribers and reviewers.