Families, Health Care Teams Turn To New Approaches To Help People Caught Up In Opioid Epidemic
Rather than immediately sending newborns dependent on opioids to foster care, Kansas City health officials are working to keep the families together. Other new ideas include not letting a family member hit "rock bottom" and using more medication-assisted treatments to keep people alive.
KCUR:
Keeping Families Together As Mothers Undergo Recovery: A New Approach To Drug Dependency
Since 2011, the number of Missouri infants born dependent on opioids has more than quadrupled. At the same time, the number of children entering the foster care system has increased, and experts think that’s connected to parents’ drug use. Kansas City health and social service groups are now trying to reverse these trends with a strategy that turns upside down old ideas about children and parents who’ve used drugs. (Smith, 8/8)
Kaiser Health News:
As Opioid Crisis Rages, Some Trade ‘Tough Love’ For Empathy
It was Bea Duncan who answered the phone at 2 a.m. on a January morning. Her son Jeff had been caught using drugs in a New Hampshire sober home and was being kicked out. Bea and her husband, Doug, drove north that night nine years ago to pick him up. On the ride back home, to Natick, Mass., the parents delivered an ultimatum: Jeff had to go back to rehab, or leave home. Jeff chose the latter, Bea said. She remembers a lot of yelling, cursing and tears as they stopped the car, in the dead of night, a few miles from the house. (Bebinger, 8/8)
Austin American-Statesman:
Texas House Focuses On Justice System’s Handling Of Opioid Crisis
Criminal justice and child protective services professionals told legislators Tuesday that the state is severely lacking in treatment services to combat the opioid crisis and other substance use problems. Experts who work in jails, probation and the foster care system say people often have overdoses, end up being arrested or suffer other devastating consequences while waiting to get into rehabilitation centers. (Huber, 8/7)
