Working with clients who are prescribed psychotropic medications is an increasingly common activity for non-medically trained mental health and other practitioners. While physicians write prescriptions, other practitioners influence and sometimes decide who receives medications and why. For these practitioners to remain competent in an area where few standards exist requires education, including critical perspectives on drug use and the influence of pharmaceutical firms on the entire health care system and on physicians’ prescribing practices. A practitioner’s involvement in referring children for medication, encouraging compliance with prescriptions, and monitoring medication effects must rest on the highest ethical standards and on robust information about risks and benefits involved in medication use.

CriticalThinkRx, funded at Florida International University, seeks to educate professionals in child welfare and mental health, but especially those with non-medical training. The curriculum developed for this project is available on this website, free of charge, for anyone who is interested.

Visit Curriculum section to take the course