Session: Parental Substance Use and the Child Welfare System: Micro and Macro Implications (Society for Social Work and Research 25th Annual Conference - Social Work Science for Social Change)

Parental substance use is a common issue for families involved with child welfare systems. A recent nationwide study found the percentage of child protective service (CPS) removals attributable to parental substance abuse rose from 14.5% in 2000 to 36.3% in 2017 (Meinhofer & Angler-Diaz, 2019). Nationally, higher rates of drug-related hospitalizations and drug overdose deaths have been associated with higher child welfare caseloads (Radel et al., 2018). These trends raise the question of how substance use impacts key micro and macro contexts relevant for child health and development, including implications for children, their families, and child welfare systems. Specifically, what are the CPS trajectories for children who become involved due to parental substance use? And what are more detailed associations between measures of community-level substance use and child maltreatment indicators?

The purpose of this symposium is to disseminate findings from four innovative studies examining the intersection of parental substance use and the child welfare system. The first two papers focus on CPS trajectories of children involved with CPS due to parental substance use. Paper 1 presents results from a nationwide analysis of whether foster care factors impact the time to permanency for children removed due to parental substance use. Paper 2 examines the association of the opioid epidemic on CPS involvement for infants diagnosed with prenatal opioid exposure. The last two papers focus on macro-level aspects of the intersection of substance use and child welfare. Paper 3 describes results of a study investigating how an environmental intervention designed to reduce alcohol-related problems was associated with child maltreatment rates. Paper 4 examines the association of opioid overdose rates at the county-level and four child maltreatment indicators.

Together, these papers examine the distinctive trajectories of children involved with child welfare as a result of parental substance use, providing new knowledge of this important, and frequent, reason for child welfare involvement. A discussant, an expert in the field, will summarize and offer commentary on the major findings, as well as policy and practice implications at the micro- and macro-levels.