- Nineteen prisoners use cutlery to break out of cells at Winchester prison
- France wants progress in Ukraine before Russia returns to G7
- Italy president begins talks to seek way out of government crisis
- Italian PM expected to resign as political chaos deepens
- Russia says US cruise missile test ‘regrettable’
- Kremlin - No date set for Normandy talks on Ukraine despite Macron meeting
- Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges
- Putin says Russian nuclear explosion poses no threat
- Russian panel eyes alleged foreign interference in protests
- Gran Canaria wildfire triggers evacuation of thousands of people
- PM Johnson calls on Germany and France to compromise on Brexit
- Sudan's ex-president Bashir arrives at corruption trial
TEHRAN, Jul 16 -Children are being taken out of their homes at alarming rates because their parents are abusing drugs, a new study shows.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -The number of kids placed in foster care in the United States due to parental drug use has more than doubled over the past two decades, rising to nearly 96,700 in 2017 from about 39,100 in 2000.
"The number of foster care entries related to drug use has been increasing for quite a long time," noted lead researcher Angelica Meinhofer. She's an instructor of health care policy and research at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.
This increase began even as the overall foster care caseload in the United States steadily declined between 2000 and 2012.
However, in recent years the nation began to see the overall numbers start to increase again, researchers said in background notes. From 2012 to 2017, kids living in foster care increased by 12 percent, and children entering foster care increased by 8 percent.
Meinhofer and her colleagues suspected that the opioid epidemic might be fueling the growth in foster care, and turned to a federally mandated database that collects case-level information on all kids in foster care in the United States.
"One of the variables collected is whether children were removed from their home for parental drug use," Meinhofer said.
Nearly 5 million foster care entries occurred between 2000 and 2017, with about a quarter attributable to parents using drugs, the researchers found.
Both the number and proportion of entries due to drug use increased during that period. In 2000, nearly 15 percent of about 270,000 removals were prompted by drugs, compared with about 36 percent of about 267,000 removals in 2017.
This occurred even as foster care entries due to other household troubles steadily declined, results showed.
Children entering foster care due to parental drug use were more likely to be 5 years old or younger, white, and from the Southern region of the United States, researchers found.
"Some of the greatest growth has occurred in the Midwest," with the proportion of drug-related removals increasing from 19 percent in 2000-2005 to 25 percent in 2012-2017, Meinhofer said. "However, the majority of these children are in Southern states."
There's also been an increase in drug-related removals in areas outside of cities, with the proportion rising from 18 percent in 2000-2005 to 25% in 2012-2017.
Meinhofer was reluctant to say whether being placed in foster care harms a child's long-term chances of success, since the foster care system is intended to protect them from abuse or neglect.
Source: upi
Your Comment