美国国家公共电台 NPR The Foster Care System Is Flooded With Children Of The Opioid Epidemic

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The U.S. foster care system is overwhelmed in part because America's opioid crisis is overwhelming. Thousands of children have had to be taken out of the care of parents or a parent who is an addict¹. One of the states with the biggest one-year increase in the number of children who need foster care is Indiana. Judge Marilyn Moores heads up the Indianapolis juvenile² court and joins us now from member station WFYI. Your Honor, thanks very much for being with us.

MARILYN MOORES: Thank you for having me.

SIMON: You've called this a tsunami³. What's happening, from where you see it?

MOORES: Well, we've gone from having 2,500 children in care three years ago having 5,500 kids in care. It has just exploded our systems.

SIMON: And help us understand it in as detailed⁴ a way as you can. What kind of cases are you seeing? What are you seeing in children and families?

MOORES: Well, one of the hallmarks is we're seeing many younger children than we had seen before. I think the average age is about three years younger than we had seen. We see lots and lots of opiate-addicted⁵ babies following their releases from NICU's where they went through withdrawal⁶ from opiate addiction⁷ that they suffered in utero. We see kids, little, itty-bitty kids, that are found in car seats in the backs of the cars where parents have overdosed in the front seat, and because of the age of the children, we can't safely leave them with addicted parents. And so it has just overruled (ph) our system.

SIMON: What do you do?

MOORES: Well, we're scrambling⁸. I have kids in - that I've had to find a foster home for not in Marion County but in Lake County, which is by Chicago. That's a two and a half hour drive.

SIMON: Yeah.

MOORES: How can I reunify parents with a child where they can't even see their child on a regular basis? We have kids who are sleeping in the Department of Child Services office because there are no homes for them that can be, you know, quickly found. Our public defenders⁹, our DCS case managers, our guardians¹⁰ ad litem, our judicial¹¹ officers, are all overwhelmed. But everyone pulls together to try their very best to ensure child safety.

SIMON: Let me pursue a difficult and delicate matter. I think a lot of people listening to this interview will wonder, why put any priority on reunification of child and parent if that parent is an addict? Is that really a good idea?

MOORES: There's a lot of debate about that, but the law requires that reasonable effort to be made to reunify first. Sadly, in some cases, the law has determined¹² that parents have a due process right to their children. In other words, we treat children like chattel¹³ of their parents, like possessions and so they have - and these are Supreme¹⁴ Court precedent¹⁵. I think that those - many of those precedents¹⁶ were issued at a time when keeping kids with parents - there were extended families who were able to help support and take care of kids. But we don't have that now. And I wonder if the law isn't antiquated¹⁷ in that regard.

SIMON: I mean, obviously, it sounds like you need more resources, more foster families, more employees in the Department of Children and Family Services. You just don't wave a wand and have that happen, though, do you?

MOORES: No, you don't. And it's been incredibly difficult for funding to keep pace with the need and the demand for services. Our director of Department of Child Services just resigned and issued a letter saying that the constraints¹⁸ that the budget was placing on her all but ensured children would die.

SIMON: It's going to drive a nail in the heart of many people when they hear that. As you know, President Trump¹⁹ has declared the opioid epidemic²⁰ a health emergency. Has that had any effect?

MOORES: It didn't come with money (laughter). And that is sadly what the necessity is; that and we need legal reform. We need reform that literally²¹ looks and says how much in the way of resources should be devoted²² to trying to reunify children with parents who cannot conquer their addiction. The recidivist rate for opiate addiction is somewhere in the 70 percent. We can't keep parents sober long enough to reunify their children with them. And even those efforts come at great cost to the taxpayers²³, and they come at even greater cost for the children because being in this system is a trauma²⁴ for children. And these back-and-forth attempts in trying to reunify them with their parents is scarring these children.

SIMON: And how do you - how do you answer the cry of some of the parents who might be addicts²⁵ that the only motivation they have to try and get clean is that they can one day become a good parent?

MOORES: Well, I think that we need to make reasonable efforts to try and reunify, but we have to have a better balancing of the child's right to safety, security, a right to pursue happiness and honor that child's life as much as we're honoring the parent's right. And right now, that balance does not tip legally in favor of the child.

SIMON: Juvenile court judge Marilyn Moores in Indianapolis, thank you so much.

MOORES: Yes, sir.