Pubdate: Sun, 27 Oct 2002
Source: Birmingham News, The (AL)
Copyright: 2002 The Birmingham News
Contact:  http://www.al.com/birminghamnews/today/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/45
Author: Carla Crowder

WHEN MOMMY USES DRUGS

Sunny Clark smoked crack-cocaine and drank liquor throughout her pregnancy.

"Actually, when my water was breaking I was sitting there smoking," recalls 
the 24-year-old Birmingham mother.

Social workers from the Jefferson County Department of Human Resources 
visited Clark in July, immediately after 61/2-pound Juanita was born. They 
began piecing together a plan to keep the baby safe.

"Talking about taking my child for six months helped me," said Clark, now a 
resident at Aletheia House drug treatment center. There she takes 
rehabilitation and job-training classes. Juanita lives with her.

Under a recently changed DHR policy, families such as the Clarks will not 
always be treated with such urgency.

The change has alarmed the juvenile court judges who oversee cases 
involving children of parents who have abused drugs. Judges say the new 
rules lessen the severity of these cases, and open doors for children to 
fall through the cracks to not receive the immediate attention crucial for 
the safety of babies such as Juanita.

"Children in Alabama will die if this policy is implemented," wrote Shelby 
County District Judge Patricia M. Smith in an Oct. 10 letter to state DHR 
Commissioner Bill Fuller.

Smith wrote the letter on behalf of anxious juvenile and family court 
judges who learned of the new DHR rules at a September statewide judges 
meeting.

At issue is DHR's decision to no longer treat infants who test positive for 
drugs as "child abuse/neglect" reports, or C/ANs. A C/AN is the standard 
for investigating and documenting abuse or neglect. Instead, the 
drug-positive newborns will be handled as less serious "prevention" cases. 
That means social workers will first determine if the mother's drug use 
warrants DHR's continued involvement. Before, such care was practically 
automatic. The word "if" especially troubles the judges.

"To us, it's obvious," said Covington County District Judge Frank "Trippy" 
McGuire, president of the Alabama Association of Juvenile and Family Court 
judges. "If we have to wait for a determination to be made, babies will die 
in the meantime."

The judges do not necessarily take infants away from drug-abusing mothers. 
But they believe that protective services must immediately be in place so 
that a mother in a drug haze won't endanger or abandon her child.

An October draft calls for the changes to kick in Nov. 1.

Fuller said he is paying close attention to the judges' concerns. The new 
policy could see further changes, he said.

Some DHR workers are also uncomfortable with the change, said Rosemary 
Brigham, a supervisor in the state DHR office of Child Protective Services.

DHR officials insist the policy does not limit social workers. It requires 
a home visit within 12 hours of hospital discharge, if there has been no 
visit at the hospital. And the policy demands that the cases be handled as 
abuse/neglect reports when a social worker determines a mother's drug use 
places her child in harm's way.

Reasons For Change

DHR officials give several reasons for the change. They want to find out if 
a mother's drug use has affected the baby before assuming there is abuse. 
Is the mother addicted, for example, or an infrequent user? Is there other 
family support?

"It seems to be a better approach, more family friendly and not so 
punitive...To get our information before we make judgments," Brigham said. 
"Sometimes separating a child from a family is much more traumatic and 
damaging than what may have occurred to the child."

DHR's revised policy also falls in line with newer medical research that 
crushes the "crack baby" myth, though the change was not based on new 
studies, Brigham said.

In the 1980s, the disparaging label gained popularity. Infants born to 
mothers swept up in the crack-cocaine epidemic were thought to be 
hopelessly damaged little monsters. Word spread based on preliminary 
research that "crack babies" could not learn or show love like other children.

That was "never accurate," said Dr. Claire Coles, a professor at the Emory 
University School of Medicine and a leading researcher on the effects of 
drugs and alcohol on fetuses.

Often, a combination of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs harmed infants. 
Cocaine alone was not to blame. "Alcohol is more widespread and damaging by 
orders of magnitude," Coles said.

"It's amazing to me the vigor of this myth," she said. And the ones most 
harmed are the stigmatized babies. "It really follows these children 
throughout their lives. People don't want to adopt them and that sort of 
thing," she said.

None of this is to say that pregnant women should use drugs. But to focus 
on the medical myths is to risk missing the real threat to children the 
environment of poverty and neglect that a parent's drug use often creates.

"We're not going to leave that child in a harmful situation," said DHR's 
Brigham.

Judges Dissatisfied

Jefferson County Family Court Judge Sandra Storm isn't convinced.

Even under the old guidelines, DHR was not doing enough to satisfy some judges.

"We have had some grave concerns about children living in homes where 
parents are drug addicted because of some serious injuries that occurred 
here when DHR was supposed to be monitoring the families. But it was not a 
court case and the courts didn't know about it," Storm said.

In response, Jefferson County authorities recently hammered out their own 
safety policy, but the new state rule negates those carefully crafted 
plans, she said.

"I think the new policy looks good in theory. It's ivory tower thinking. 
But in the real world where we live every day, it ignores safety issues," 
Storm said.

And it caught judges by surprise. "No one was informed about it. No one 
knew ahead of time," she said.

For Clark, the new mother in rehab, her daughter was the single motivator 
to try and stop using drugs.

But even with a newborn, she spent two months on a waiting list because of 
Alabama's chronic shortage of drug treatment for poor people. From the day 
of her daughter's birth she begged for help. "I need help now. Help me now, 
not tomorrow," she told social workers. DHR arranged for her to stay with 
an aunt until a treatment spot opened.

Now, Clark says she wants to watch her daughter grow, see her through 
school and tend her when she's sick. "She's a new chance at life," Clark said.
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