Dr. Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak talk to Andrea Darr from Handle with Care West Virginia about her state’s drug crisis and the effect it is having on its children. She also shares the ways the Handle with CARE program helps these children.

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Transcript

Dave: [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 168, Drug Endangered Children: Handle with Care.

Production Credits: [00:00:09] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

[00:00:29] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: [00:00:34] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: [00:00:36] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And today’s guest, Sandie, is going to be such an important addition to our ongoing conversation on ending human trafficking. And also, very much connected to the theme upcoming for the Ensure Justice conference.

Sandie: [00:00:57] That’s right. And by the time you’re listening to this podcast, Andrea and her colleague, Chad Napier, will have been presenters here at Ensure Justice. And you’ll have to go back and review that, and make sure you sign up for 2019.

Dave: [00:01:13] Well we are really pleased to welcome Andrea Darr to the show today. She is the director of the West Virginia’s Center for Children’s Justice, which promotes and supports a statewide trauma informed response to child maltreatment and children’s exposure to violence. Before devoting her work full time on children’s initiatives, Andrea served as the coordinator of Victim Witness services for the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Institute from 2005 to 2015. Andrea’s also worked in direct services with victims of crime violence and abuse, while serving as the victim liaison in the Konneh County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Andrea we’re so glad to welcome you to Ending Human Trafficking.

Andrea: [00:01:56] Well, thank you so much for having me today.

Sandie: [00:01:59] So we’re going to dig right into this podcast content because there’s so much information that we’d love for you to explain for us. My first question is, can you explain what a drug endangered child is?

Andrea: [00:02:17] Sure. Drug endangered children are children whose lives have been adversely affected by their parents or caregivers, youth manufacturing, trafficking illegal substances. So, their children that experience a wide range of abuse and neglect because of the substances. For the most part, a neglect really stands out in this because a lot of times when people are addicted to drugs, you know that’s their focus, that’s their primary focus. It’s the first thing they think about in the morning. What does my stash look like? How am I going to use today? How am I going to get some more? Where am I going to get the money to cover it? So, they’re not thinking about packing the child’s lunch, getting the child to school, making sure they have clean clothes. And when you get into cocaine and methamphetamine and things like that, the physical violence really escalates with that. And the sexual violence escalates. So, it’s just children who didn’t choose this, but they live in homes where there’s substance abuse. And it really negatively affects them.

Sandie: [00:03:18] We’ve known that this is an issue that we need to engage for a long time. But the media attention we have now to the opioid crisis, brings this to the top of the charts. And you live at ground zero. Can you explain why that’s so significant?

Andrea: [00:03:39] It’s so significant for these kids. You know you’re more likely in West Virginia to die from a drug overdose than any other state in the country. We are ground zero for the opioid epidemic. We’re a very rural state, rural as in non-farming. So, two thirds of the total population live sort of a rural, non-farming area. In West Virginia for years and years coal was king here. Lots of the jobs here were coal, and timbering, and lots of physically manual jobs. And a lot of these people when they got hurt, often doctors would give them a pill instead of doing the physical therapy and the surgery and everything needed just to get them back to work. So, in West Virginia we have lost 40 percent of our coal jobs in the last five years. And when you lose your job it’s not just a paycheck- it’s who you are, your purposes, your connection to the community, your connection with your family, it’s so many things about yourself. So, for our population to lose these jobs have been devastating. And along with that, one in four of our kids live below the federal poverty line. We are ground zero for the opioid epidemic. We had a terrible pill problem, which obviously turned into a terrible heroin problem because it is cheaper and it’s more accessible. We have one of the highest rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome, you know babies born with drugs in their system. And all these things are creating a really high rate of transient kids, couch surfing kids, kids who you know they’re just transients, they’re just staying wherever they can, however they can survive. And of course, that’s how I got to you all today, and coming to the conference because oftentimes they get picked up in trafficking situations just to survive. And in West Virginia we lead the nation in removal of kids from homes because of all these problems. And I think we’re right now second in the country in grandparents raising their grandkids.

Sandie: [00:05:41] Oh my goodness.

Andrea: [00:05:43] You put all that together and you’ve got so many transient and displaced children who aren’t on anybody’s radar really.

Sandie: [00:05:52] And when do you historically feel like this started to really come to the attention in West Virginia, of child welfare of government? How long have you been tracking this?