UC Davis Extension partners with northern counties on new federal meth grant program

Nancy Hafer (left) and Susan Brooks (right),
The Center for Human Services

Use of methamphetamines is no longer a "fringe" problem. Its use and abuse has worked its way into everyday family life, leaving children particularly vulnerable when their parents become addicted.

In fact, the incidence of children being removed from the custody of addicted parents and placed in foster care has been on the rise in Northern California, especially in the smaller communities. In many northern counties, foster care placements are three to four times more likely than in other regions in the state.¹

According to Susan Brooks, a program director at the Center for Human Services at UC Davis Extension: "Child welfare agencies in Northern California now estimate that at least 85-90 percent of the cases they handle involve parents who are addicted to drugs, with methamphetamines cited as the drug of choice."

County child welfare directors throughout the north state agree that the growing prevalence of methamphetamine use among parents is the single biggest contributor to Child Protective Services (CPS) intervention and removal of children from their parents' custody.

"Meth is a huge problem," says Laurie Bell, program analyst with the CPS department in Trinity County. "The well-being of many families in the county is in crisis due to meth use. Meth abuse is prevalent in all areas of the county, and it affects families in all walks of life here."

In counties like Trinity, where drug intervention and treatment resources are severely limited and county services budgets are meager, collaboration with other counties is critical.

To examine the growing problem of drug and alcohol abuse and its prevalence in the child welfare system, UC Davis Extension (through its Center for Human Services) held a summit in Lake County a year ago and invited the directors from all Northern California county social services departments to attend. As a result of information gained at the summit and networking among county directors, the counties of Butte, Trinity, Lake and Tehama teamed up to create the Northern California Regional Partnership for Safe and Stable Families. UC Davis Extension worked with the partnership to identify grant activities and funding opportunities.

Their efforts paid off last November when the partnership was awarded a $1.5 million grant from the Federal Administration for Children and Families. Butte County Department of Employment and Social Services (along with the three other participating counties in the partnership) will receive $500,000 per year for three years to address the issue of methamphetamine use and families in the child welfare system. UC Davis Extension will receive $150,000 from the grant for consultation, technical assistance, identification of training needs, and providing training for child welfare staff as well as drug and alcohol agency staff in the participating counties, according to Nancy Hafer, the program supervisor at UC Davis Extension who assisted the four counties in applying for the federal grant.

In addition to fostering collaboration between the four counties, one of the primary objectives of the Partnership for Safe and Stable Families is to build collaboration and service coordination between each county's Child Welfare Services department and its Drug and Alcohol Services (AOD) department.

"We have a good relationship with our county AOD program, but the more we work together, the better we will understand each others' mandates and limitations," says Patti Morelli, senior administrative analyst for the Children's Services Division of Butte County Department of Employment and Social Services.

For example, no protocols currently exist within and across counties regarding screening of parents who may be drug addicted and may be neglecting or abusing their children. The partnership will develop and implement tools for use by Child Welfare Services to identify substance use in parents. Likewise, it will develop screening instruments for use by Drug and Alcohol Services to identify signs of child maltreatment. In addition, part of the grant funding will be used to hire a drug and alcohol counselor to work in the child welfare office in each of the four partner counties.

"These efforts will enable us to provide better services to clients at the point of first involvement with CPS," explains Christine Applegate, director of the Tehama County Department of Social Services. "We believe that by increasing early identification, engagement and treatment for parents with substance abuse problems, this will increase successful treatment completion and successful reunification of families."

Brooks adds that the ability to share expertise and information across the child welfare and drug and alcohol systems is critical to reducing the number of cases where parents have their children taken into protective custody as a result of drug addiction.

By the end of the grant period, UC Davis Extension's Center for Human Services plans to provide the state with evidence-based best-practice models for collaboration between Alcohol and Drug and Child Welfare departments with the intent that these models could be implemented in counties throughout the state.

"The road is a long one, but we have the opportunity to improve outcomes for thousands of families," says Brooks. "We're ready to get started."

¹ Child Welfare Services Reports for California (2007). Retrieved from the UC Berkeley Center for Social Services database site http:///cssr.berkeley.edu/CWSCMSreports.