2012 and 2014 Regional Partnership Grants to Increase the Well-Being of and to Improve the Permanency Outcomes for Children Affected by Substance Abuse: Third Annual Report to Congress

To help children who may be in or at risk for entering the child welfare system as a result of parental substance use, Congress funded and the Children’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded grants to 17 regional partnerships among child welfare organizations, drug treatment facilities, and other family support systems in 15 states. Mathematica is using data contributed by the partnerships to conduct an ongoing national cross-site evaluation.

Early enrollment data in this third report to Congress, including information on more than 625 families (over 800 adults and one thousand children), shows that partnerships are reaching the at-risk children Congress intended to serve.

• 37% of RPG adults exhibited high severity of either drug or alcohol use or of both in the past month and 38% exhibited symptoms of severe depression.
• 31% of RPG children being followed by the study had one or more substantiated episodes of maltreatment prior to enrollment in RPG.
• 26% of children in the study had been removed from their homes in the year prior to RPG enrollment. Of those, 15 percent were reunited with their families during that period.
• Half of adults followed for the study were unemployed. Nearly three quarters had less than $10,000 in income from any source during the year prior to enrolling in RPG.