In Butler County, while the heroin epidemic is still rampant, a complete overhaul of the Children Services agency appears to be having some impact on the number of actual removals due to substance abuse. Butler County Children Services Executive Director Jerome Kearns said removals due to substance abuse have dropped slightly from the 60 percent rate in 2013.
“Of the removals following the investigation, substance abuse was a safety factor in the removal decision in approximately 56 percent of the families,” he said. “That includes any type of removal.”
Typically, between 62 percent to 85 percent of children in foster care have been exposed to substance abuse in their home, said Helen Jones-Kelley, executive director of the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board for Montgomery County.
Addicted parents often are too busy getting high or trying to score drugs to meet the physical and emotional needs of their offspring, experts said. Children of addicts can end up malnourished, physically abused and traumatized.
And the state’s deadly heroin epidemic has played a role in the tearing many families apart and placing vulnerable children in unhealthy living situations.
“Think about what happens to families: Marriages break up, families find themselves destitute financially, there is no food on the table and they end up getting evicted,” said Jones-Kelley, who for 12 years was the executive director of the Montgomery County Children Services. “Once your brain is addicted, it’s hard to see all of the fallout.”
Children are removed from their homes and placed in temporary foster care when their living situations are deemed unsafe by child protective services workers.
Last year, about 13,054 children were in Ohio’s foster care system, which was up 2 percent from 2013 and 5 percent from 2012, according to data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
The number of children in Butler County custody now stands at 421, down from about 460 a year ago. Kearns attributes some of the drop to the change in the way they are doing business these days. The executive director announced a major overhaul a year ago, and they are now front loading services, such as treatment for heroin addiction, so removals aren’t always necessary.
“The heroin problem hasn’t gone away,” he said. “But if we’re doing fewer removals, then that would be a reason for the percentage to be down somewhat.”
Elsewhere officials said drug abuse is likely fueling some of the increase in the foster child population.
Last year, there were 1,580 foster children who were removed from their homes primarily because of parental drug abuse, the state data show. That was 374 children more than in 2012.
And that accounted for more than half of the overall increase of removals, which was 609.
And the actual number of foster care admissions related to parental drug abuse undoubtedly is higher than the state’s numbers.
Last year, less than 1 percent of children in foster care in Montgomery County were listed as being removed from their homes because of parental drug abuse.
But that is clearly not accurate and the actual removals owing to drug abuse is much higher, said Kevin Lavoie, spokesman with Montgomery County Job and Family Services.
Children services case workers have some discretion when listing the primary reason of a removal, said Benjamin Johnson, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
That means caseworkers may mark neglect or abuse as the primary cause of removal when really the unsafe living conditions directly stem from drug abuse. Child neglect is one of the most common problems related to parental drug use.
“All we can say with certainty is that there has been an increase in the number of children removed from the home where drug abuse by a parent was the primary reason for removal,” Johnson said. “There are many factors at play.”
Parents spend all of their money on drugs and do not have enough left over to buy their children food, clothing or other necessities.
Selecting one reason for removal instead of another does not impact the type of services and assistance provided by caseworkers, Lavoie said.
“The reason given doesn’t have a bearing on how we work with an individual or family going forward,” he said.
Dependency was listed as the primary reason for most foster child admissions in the county. But dependency simply means the parent cannot care for the child, which can result from a variety of factors, including drug abuse and mental illness, officials said.
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