New research has revealed that nearly half of children raised in Australian families with parents who inject drugs had either been placed in out-of-home care or come to the attention of child protective services.
Supervised by Professor Paul Dietze from Curtin University’s National Drug Research Institute, an analysis of more than 1,000 parents by the Burnet Institute’s Dr Jocelyn Chan found that many of the parents lived in unstable accommodation and experienced moderate to severe levels of anxiety and depression.
Only 26% of parents reported residing with at least one of their children, with more women and non-binary parents doing so (38%) compared to men (18%). However, while 56% of parents reported child protection service involvement, this increased to 72% for female or non-binary parents.
“We identified high rates of child placement in OOHC among parents who inject drugs: of the 563 participants who reported their own childhood care status, 135 (24%) reported they had been removed to OOHC, and it is estimated that 60% of Australian children in OOHC were removed from households affected by substance use disorders,” Dr Chan said.
Among a group of 171 Australian mothers in treatment for opioid use disorder, 64% had been reported to child protection services and 33% had at least one child in OOHC.
“Yet, parenthood represents a key time point in which to intervene to improve health outcomes for both parents and children from families affected by the harms associated with substance use,” Dr Chan said.
“There is a need for targeted health and social services, that are gender and culturally responsive, in addition to systems-level interventions addressing social inequities, such as housing, to support parents to care for their children.
“Evidence, including the characteristics and living circumstances of families, is needed to develop strategies to support families affected by substance use and facilitate family preservation.”
Being female or non-binary, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, experiencing assault and having a higher number of children were the characteristics most associated with greater odds of having a child removed to out-of-home care.
“Child protection involvement may be appropriate for some families, given evidence suggests a small, but statistically significant detriment to child well-being associated with parental substance use,” Dr Chan said.
“While our analyses did not investigate the indications nor appropriateness of child protection involvement or child removal among participants, the results need to be interpreted within a context of pervasive stigmatisation of people who inject drugs.
“This stigmatisation has the potential to contribute to high rates of child removal through multiple mechanisms, including increased surveillance or stricter conditions at an interpersonal level, and the use of punitive rather than supportive policies at an institutional level.”