opioids

The House and Senate wrapped up a deal on a sprawling bill meant to assist states in fighting the opioid epidemic, which claimed 50,000 lives last year and has contributed to a five-year surge in the number of youth in foster care.

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services will hear about every child born in the state that is exposed to drugs at birth, thanks to a bill signed into law this month by Gov.

In June, the Trump administration hired Jerry Milner to lead the federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees federal child welfare funding and policy. The Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) was established in 1977 and oversees the Family and Youth Services Bureau as well as the much larger Children’s Bureau, which was created by President William Howard Taft back in 1912.

By all outward appearances, I grew up in a normal American family. My parents had respectable jobs in construction and nursing, a four-bedroom home, family dog and a playhouse my father built from the ground up.

In 2000, less than a decade after its founding, the National Family Preservation Network was facing an abrupt demise. The organization came into existence as research began to support Intensive Family Preservation Services (IFPS), commonly known as Homebuilders, the model developed out of Tacoma, Wash.,

He says: Addiction shouldn’t be called “addiction.” It should be called “ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking.” He says: Ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking (what traditionalists call addiction) is a normal response to the adversity experienced in childhood, just like bleeding is a normal response to being stabbed.

The Alliance for Children’s Rights announced today that Laurie Rubiner, a long-time political staffer and advocate in Washington, D.C., will become the advocacy organization’s new CEO. Rubiner is currently the chief of staff for Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and previously served as vice president for public policy and advocacy for Planned Parenthood and as legislative director for then-Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY).

The second most common cause for entry into foster care system nationwide, parental substance use disorder consistently jeopardizes child health and safety. An uptick in the use of opioids and other substances has led to a rise in the number of children being removed from their homes due to parental substance abuse.  

Ohio’s child welfare system is in crisis, due chiefly to the opioid epidemic. The ability of child-serving agencies to provide essential services to vulnerable children – the innocent victims of this crisis – is at great risk.