substance abuse

Congressional intern Dylan Evans proposes more federal investment in substance use treatment as a prevention tool, and kin caregiver support.

The Biden Administration recently announced $450 million in spending to bolster drug abuse prevention and treatment amid a national epidemic of overdose deaths.

The federal Prevention Services Clearinghouse has cleared five new service models for funding under the Family First Prevention Services Act, bringing the current number of options up to 34.

By John Kelly

Last week, the North Carolina legislature sent a bill to Gov. Roy Cooper (D) that would make it easier and faster to put babies born exposed to drugs and alcohol on a path to adoption, cutting off efforts to return them to their parents.

In the final hour of a daylong Health and Human Services committee meeting for the Texas House of Representatives last November, Sammi Jo Magee took the microphone. Magee, the chief prosecutor in the Child Protective Services division for Taylor County, Texas, which includes Abilene, had been summoned to explain why Taylor and surrounding counties were taking more kids into foster care than any other region in the state.

A popular model that supports child welfare-involved parents through addiction treatment is among 12 new candidates under review for new federal funding.  Sobriety Treatment And Recovery Teams, known as START, is a model started in Kentucky that hinges on a specially trained caseworker and rapid access to substance abuse services.

The federal government’s annual Child Maltreatment publication, released last month, showed a continuing trendline on the report’s central issue. The number of child maltreatment investigations has risen by nearly 10 percent since 2014 – the amount of documented abuse and neglect from those investigations has also increased, but only by about half of 1 percent.

Maryland has become the third child welfare system to receive approval for a plan under the Family First Prevention Services Act, allowing them to draw down federal funds for services to prevent the use of foster care in some child welfare cases.