Addressing Parental Substance Use

Overview

Early efforts to engage parents in recovery treatment and supports can strengthen family stability and can improve the likelihood that children can remain in their parents’ care. Supporting substance-using caregivers on their journey to recovery is essential for both parent and child health and well-being. Parental substance use is a significant driver of adverse maternal and infant health outcomes and interactions with the child welfare system, disproportionately impacting families of color. 

The GPL works with jurisdictions that are committed to reimagining the way they serve caregivers whose lives — and those of their children — are impacted by substance use. This looks like: 

• Working with leaders to build and manage robust recovery service arrays outside of child protective services and other punitive systems. 
• Helping jurisdictions use data and family input to identify opportunities to equitably improve families’ outcomes, for example by building more culturally responsive supports.  
• Connecting with healthcare systems and Medicaid agencies to identify earlier opportunities to engage and serve families, including strategies to ensure families can access desired community-based supports as part of federally required Plans of Safe Care. 
• Helping leaders develop ways to connect families screened out at child protection hotlines to community-based supports. 
• Encouraging jurisdictions to prioritize hiring individuals with similar life experiences who are often best positioned to build the necessary trust with families to help them feel comfortable asking for and engaging with best-fit services.