Parental Drug Use and Foster Care
The problem with being a parent and an addict is solved by taking the parent’s children away…so some may think. However, why is it this Country focuses on asylums, prison and foster care for a solution for parents using controlled substances. Why not focus on remedies? How about if the County removes the child from the parent’s custody due to drug use, we immediately get that parent treatment help? After all, the whole goal of prison is to reform the drug user and the whole goal of child protection is to reunify the parent and child. So, what is the hold up?
The foster care system is the hold up. There are simply not enough willing families to be a foster care provider. Also, parents who are addicted to controlled substances are not getting treatment immediately when their children are taken from them. The parent’s get punished for using controlled substances by having their children taken from them with no immediate outreach for help. Services take time. Treatment options take time. Time is the problem.
This article sheds some insight to the foster care world and the dangerously high numbers of foster care children going through the system due to their parents using drugs. Of the number of foster care children there are out there, 36% of them have come into the system due to their parents using controlled substances.
The short-term solution is to encourage families to become foster care homes to handle the high increase of children being taken from their parents due to drug use. However, a long-term solution will need to be thought out. Drug addiction isn’t something a parent can just ignore because they have a moral obligation to be a parent. We need to figure out a way to help parents get immediate help when child protection gets involved.
Gierman Law:
Gierman Law is a defense firm that handles criminal defense, child protection and family law cases. We strive ourselves on finding solutions to problems like the problem laid out above. If you, or anyone you know, needs representation or a consultation, feel free to reach out to Wanda Gierman and Ross Montgomery. We’ll protect your Freedom, Family and Future.
320-259-4004
