(Part Two) One in five children in foster care in Texas is on psychotropic medicines for an extended time. Those are powerful drugs that change brain function.

Despite a push by the state to decrease the use of psychotropics, children younger than the age of 2 are being prescribed anti-psychotics.

A 7-year-old boy stood before Judge John Hathaway during a Child Protective Services court docket in May.

"The CPS report talks about Clonidine, already prescribed, as well as Respidol?" Hathaway asked the child's caseworker.

The answer was “yes.”

Respidol is an antipsychotic. Clonidine is approved to treat narcotic addicts.

"So, a 7-year-old [is] on Respidol? [That] seems kind of young. [Is] everyone comfortable with these medications that are being prescribed?" Hathaway said.

According to a state report, 43.7 percent of foster kids, from the ages of 6-12, were on psychotropics for at least one day last year; 55 percent of teenagers fell under the same category.

Mercedes Mitchell, 19, was among them.

"I was always wondering why? What's wrong with my body?" she said. "I was always tired. I probably took five in the morning, three in the evening [and] six at night."

Mitchell said she doesn't remember exactly how many psychotropics she was on. In fact, she doesn't remember much of anything after she was 8 years old. That’s when she got her first prescription.

Often, the medicines are prescribed outside of FDA-approved guidelines according to child psychiatrist Dr. Laurie Seremetis.

"We know very little about how that affects brain development," Seremetis said. "Most of the studies with these medications have been done with adults, and you can't necessarily extrapolate those results to children."

Last year 442 children, ages 2 and under, were prescribed psychotropics for at least one day. CPS Assistant Commissioner Audrey Deckinga said most of those cases were used to treat seizures.

"We've looked very carefully at those, at very, very, young children," Deckinga said.

But, in 2007, the long-existent issue of foster kids on psychotropics concerned the state enough to come up with usage guidelines. They say a child should be on no more than five of the drugs at once.

The voluntary guidelines made no difference for 21-year-old Ashley Schmidt.

"When I first saw them, they put me on nine meds," she said. "They didn't really ask for my opinion or what I thought was wrong, or how I felt about anything. It was them. They didn't care, it didn't seem like."

But if you ask the psychiatrists, caseworkers and judges, they say they do care. They say the problem lies elsewhere, in the lack of resources standing between foster children and their well-being.