Endangered Child Training Network Expansion Project

According to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services (June, 2004) drug abuse was a factor in 40 to 45% (estimated) of all cases in which children were removed from their home due to substantiated abuse or neglect. These estimates hold true for both children placed in foster care and those placed in kinship care. Of child fatalities in which abuse or neglect was substantiated, 76% were related to adult drug use. Children, in homes where methamphetamine is cooked, may be exposed be sleeping in beds saturated with volatile organic compounds and relying on adults with altered mental status for their care. In addition, exposure to chemical waste and hazardous ingredients may result in oral blisters, bums, respiratory effects, neurological damage and an increase risk of substance abuse throughout their lifespan. Children exposed to substance abuse, particularly those who suffer abuse or neglect and those who intentionally or unintentionally ingest illicit substances, often experience a myriad of behavior problems, learning difficulties, long term effects of distress, and health problems that may go undetected for years. Physicians, mental health professionals, and school personnel may have difficulty associating symptoms with a cause without proper identification methods. This situation is further complicated because science is limited. In fact, although research has been done on the long-term effects of methamphetamine exposure on adults, there is almost nothing in published literature about methamphetamine exposures for children. Pediatricians Wendy Wright, MD, of Children's Hospital San Diego; Penny Grant, MD, of the University of Oklahoma; and Mark Miller, MD, of the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, developed a logical but elegant model of thinking about environmental exposures to assist them in devising a medical protocol for the evaluation of these children, (Pollack, S.H., "Adolescent Occupational Exposures and Pediatric- Adolescent Take-Home Exposures", Children's Environmental Health.) The Drug-Endangered Child Training Network will provide the most current recommended training to physicians, nurses, in-home care providers, social workers, mental health providers, family resource center staff, Cooperative Extension Agents, UNITE staff and its' coalitions to ensure access to vital health and safety information. It is important to note that exposure may also occur after contact with meth-production waste, rental property that was a former waste site, hotels, or other formerly contaminated sites which increases the value of broad-based training of symptom-identification. This project will include efforts to improve qualitative reports and medical findings and to develop a protocol that is expected to make a contribution to current literature. Professional training coupled with the current community education effOlis and social marketing campaigns underway by the University of Kentucky, Health Education through Extension Leadership project will help ensure that residents of Kentucky's most underserved counties have information to protect themselves and their families.