Opioid epidemic is driving thousands of Minnesota children into foster care

The number of Minnesota children being removed from drug-addicted parents has reached crisis levels, flooding a state child welfare system that was already operating under heavy strains.

As the opioid epidemic has tightened its grip on the Upper Midwest, drug abuse by parents has emerged as the leading reason why children are taken from their parents. Children have been removed from their families because of parental drug abuse on more than 6,000 occasions from 2015 to 2017, according to new data from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS).

Parents’ substance abuse now accounts for nearly one of three children being removed from their homes statewide, compared to just over one in 10 a decade ago.

The trend has also produced an alarming increase in newborns exposed to opioids in utero. More than 1,600 Minnesota children were exposed prenatally to alcohol or illegal substances in 2017 — more than double …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept that my given data and my IP address is sent to a server in the USA only for the purpose of spam prevention through the Akismet program.More information on Akismet and GDPR.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.