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Delaware part of long-term study of drug-exposed kids

National program to track children from before birth to age 18
December 6, 2016

Child advocates are thrilled to be part of a national program that studies the effects of drug exposure on infants and follows those children until age 18.

“This is great news for us,” said Jen Donahue, a child abuse investigator for the Delaware court system.

“It will help us set up a system to keep track before a woman is pregnant until the child is 18.”

A long-term study of a child born exposed to drugs will help researchers determine if there are lingering effects on that child, she said.

Delaware is one of seven states that has been accepted into the Substance-Exposed Infant In-Depth Technical Assistance program, funded by the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare. The center has worked with Connecticutt, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, Virginia and West Virginia, and will now include Delaware, on developing policy and practice to improve the lives of pregnant and postpartum women and their children.

As part of the program, Donahue said, eight experts from Delaware will attend a policy academy in February held in Baltimore where they will receive in-depth technical assistance from national consultants and experts in other states to track health, living conditions and other factors associated with children born exposed to drugs.

With help from a national support network, Delaware substance abuse workers will be able to study long-term effects on infants who were exposed to drugs before birth, considering all factors that might affect a young child, said Emily Knearl of the Division of Public Health. “This sews everything together so we can start a system,” she said.

Following the February conference, Donahue said Delaware coordinators will speak twice a month with national experts for help and support as Delaware creates its own tracking system.

“They're going to be good conversations,” Knearl said. “There are clearly reasons why we need this.”

The number of substance-exposed infants spiked in 2016 with 336 reports as of October, and of them, 239 were investigated by the Division of Family Services.

In 2015, there were 294 reports with 191 investigated.

 

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