Child Abuse | Substance-Abuse Treatment Must Be Made Available to Abusive Parents

State human service administrators and child welfare directors have identified substance abuse by parents as one of the most pervasive problems affecting the child welfare system today. The facts are staggering. An estimated 40 to 80 percent of the children who are involved with the child welfare system have families with alcohol and drug problems. In my own state of Iowa, over 50 percent of our family foster care cases involve parental substance abuse, and at least one-third of our “in-home” cases involve parental substance abuse. In Polk County, which contains our state’s largest...

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