Chapter 1

Introduction

 

In a field where difficult decisions are made every day, child welfare workers face particular dilemmas when working with the extremely troubled families whose complex and multiple problems include both substance abuse and child maltreatment.

Central to their challenge is that addiction to alcohol and other drugs can be a chronic, relapsing disorder and recovery can be a long term process.  At the same time, children have an immediate need for safe and stable homes in which to grow up.  Balancing these factors, as parents make sincere efforts to provide safe and loving homes for their children, represents a key challenge for the child welfare field and for judges making critical custody decisions.

Substance abuse (including both licit and illicit drugs) can impair a parent's judgment and priorities, rendering the parent unable to provide the consistent care, supervision, and guidance children need.  For child welfare workers it is often difficult to determine what level of functional improvement will enable a parent with substance abuse problems to resume or retain his or her parental role without jeopardizing child safety, particularly as relapse remains a significant possibility.  As child welfare workers address safety concerns, substance abuse treatment counselors work to ensure that the treatment process promotes recovery while addressing parents' concerns about their children's safety and their fear of losing their children to the child welfare system.

An important challenge facing both the child welfare and substance abuse fields is to take a comprehensive view of families' situations and to understand the contributions of various problematic behaviors to child maltreatment.  The relationship between substance abuse and child welfare is complicated by the presence of other personal, health, environmental, social and economic factors.  These factors, in many cases, contribute to the development of addiction and confound both the process of securing safe, stable homes for children and the treatment process.  For this reason, although this report concentrates on the relationship between substance abuse and child maltreatment, it is important to note that all major family problems must be addressed to achieve substance abuse treatment success and child safety.

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