USA
TV talk show host and psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw said at a Capitol
Hill briefing Wednesday that efforts to treat the drug-addicted parents
must be about more than just detox.
“We have widespread treatment
shortages,” McGraw said, and in many cases, services that match the
needs of an individual family are “nonexistent.”
“We cannot just detox them and put them right back into their
situation,” McGraw told a panel of Congressmen, which was organized by
Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.). Underlying stressors “must also be addressed
to not leave triggers in place that bring on relapse.”
McGraw
called the recently-passed Family First Prevention Services Act a
“significant first step” in efforts to help states. The law for the
first time allows states to use the Title IV-E entitlement, currently
allowed only for foster care and adoption payments, to be used for
services aimed at preventing the need for foster care in certain
maltreatment cases.
Title IV-E is the entitlement through which
states can currently seek reimbursement for some youth in foster care
and most children adopted from foster care. The Family First Act permits
the use of the entitlement – for up to 12 months – for substance abuse,
mental health and parenting skills interventions aimed at preventing the
use of foster care.
“I certainly applaud that,” McGraw said.
“Foster care is expensive, and frankly does not work.”
McGraw
singled out two models of front-end services he believes should receive
more investment:
Family-based residential treatment programs,
which, he said are “among the most powerful protocols” in substance
abuse treatment. Such programs will be eligible for federal IV-E funding
under Family First, for up to 12 months at a time.
Home-based
services for babies with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS), which cause
withdrawal-like symptoms in babies born with opioids in their system.
Most newborns are treated for NAS in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
McGraw said studies have shown that home-based services for those
babies reduce the average length of stay in hospitals by more than 15
days, and lowers the cost of treatment from $53,000 to $11,000.
“We have evidence-based alternatives … at a fraction of the cost,” he
said.
McGraw also stressed that while the opioid epidemic is
claiming lives at an accelerating rate, drinking and other drugs such as
methamphetamine are still playing a major role in maltreatment cases.
“We cannot ignore that other substances also involved,” he said,
adding that combinations of substance use are often not considered in
their totality. “Evidence-based substance abuse assessments are
critically important now.”
McGraw’s wife, Robin, promoted the use
of kinship navigator programs to help support relatives that are
involved in a parent’s recovery.
“This is grandparents helping
other grandparents,” said McGraw. “It shows relatives how to communicate
with schools, ensure a child has health services, and helps caregivers
in understanding their options.”
This was not Dr. Phil’s first
trip to Capitol Hill on the subjects of opioids and child welfare. He
testified about the misuse of psychotropic drugs on foster youth in
2014, and about parents and the opioid crisis in 2016.
“If you
don’t have reunification as your number one objective” in opioid cases,
“then you need to make it your number one objective,” McGraw said at the
hearing.
By John Kelly
10 May 2018