Parental Substance Abuse : Home Environment, Part 4

by Child Welfare Information Gateway

(Page 10 of 10)

Receptivity to Services

It also is necessary to assess a foster family's receptivity to help and services. Because children from chemically involved families often require a range of services, professionals need to consider a foster parent's willingness to work with a variety of agencies and individuals. Questions that the professional should consider in this area include:

Is the foster parent open to new information, strategies, and resources?

Does the foster parent demonstrate willingness to work with the agency and follow the service/treatment plan?

Does the foster parent recognize the need for recommended services?

Family Supports

The professional needs to explore the effect of an infant's or child's placement on the entire foster family system. Because caring for children from chemically involved families can be stressful for the whole family, the professional needs to assess the following areas to determine the need for respite services or referrals for foster family support:

If the child has special needs, how is the foster family handling the increased stress caused by this placement? Are supports in place to help with caregiving and provide respite?

Are the child's special needs placing excessive stress on other children in the family?

Guides for Assessment

To help professionals better assess the comprehensive needs of chemically involved families, relative caregivers, and foster parents, special assessment/intervention guides have been included in Tables 3, 4, and 5. Divided into three broad areas (the child, the caregiver, and the environment), these guides rely heavily on an ecological model of human development and family functioning and on the assumption that child abuse and neglect is determined by the interactions of multiple factors within the individual, the family, the community, and the culture. These guides are not intended for use in a mechanical fashion; no numerical scores should be assigned as the basis for decision making. Rather, these assessment guidelines are intended to be used as tools to enhance professional clinical judgment. Although these guides are not predictive of future child abuse or neglect, they may be helpful to staff in a number of ways:

They can help remind professionals of the kind of questions they need to ask parents and the kind of information they need to gather during home visits and through collateral contacts. Used in this way, the guides may help standardize the assessment process, ensuring that all areas of risk of child maltreatment are covered during each assessment.

The guides can help professionals prioritize interventions for families and assist them in matching families with appropriate services.

Professionals can use the guides longitudinally, comparing families along the various factors at certain intervals to examine the effects of intervention and family changes over time.

Professionals may elect to use the assessment/intervention guides with chemically dependent parents to help them see areas of strength as well as areas of concern. This can help family members understand the criteria by which they will be evaluated, which in itself can be empowering.

The guides can provide a common language and framework for clinicians from different agencies who are working with the same family. This common reference point can help minimize interagency friction and professional misunderstanding.

When used as an interagency tool, the guides encourage the development of a common plan for intervention and can be used to determine the appropriate professionals and agencies to address each area of need.

Summary

A thorough assessment of all family members is the key to determining the specific constellation of support services that can foster the overall health and well-being of an individual substance-involved family. In order to do a thorough assessment, professionals need a solid knowledge base within their own disciplines as well as an understanding of the problem of alcohol and/or other drug abuse. Further, an awareness of the importance of other professional disciplines in working with substance-affected families is critical.

Assessment is a dynamic and ongoing process. During the initial period of involvement with a family, professionals generally will be able to elicit only partial information regarding family strengths and needs. Additional information can be obtained over time as professionals work together, moving the family forward towards alleviation of stressors and resolution of identified problems. In order to accomplish this goal, it is important for professionals to develop strategies for putting various pieces of assessment information together and for updating service plans on a periodic basis. One professional, one agency, or a core group needs to take the lead in compiling and communicating the facts that lead to decisions about appropriate services for the family. This approach also helps to relieve family stress, since it means that family members, not to mention other professionals, can count on a single designated "contact," rather than needing to go to various sources for information.

About the Author

www.childwelfare.gov
Formerly the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information and the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, Child Welfare Information Gateway provides access to information and resources to help protect children and strengthen families. A service of the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.