Jay Addresses Effect of Methamphetamine Crisis on Children (Washington DC)

By HNN Staff

Washington, DC (HNN) – Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) shared with his Senate Finance Committee colleagues Tuesday, April 25, 2006, the importance of addressing the effects of the methamphetamine crisis on children.

Rockefeller has been a leader in providing West Virginia officials with resources to help them fight meth in West Virginia’s town and communities. And with his expertise on children’s issues, Rockefeller is leading the charge in Congress to consider how the crisis specifically affects children.

“West Virginia, like too many states, is struggling with a severe problem with the meth epidemic,” Rockefeller said in a written statement for the hearing on “Effects of Methamphetamine on the Child Welfare System.” Rockefeller is recuperating from recent back surgery. “This crisis is devastating our families, our law enforcement officials, and most tragically our child welfare system.

“We know arrests are up due to meth, and in many states, including West Virginia, we are seeing press reports of out-of-home placements for children on the rise as well. We need to determine how we can help our law enforcement officials and our child welfare system with this growing problem. How can we educate and support foster families that take in children devastated by meth, and how do we support a full and prompt recovery, if possible, for their parents?”

At a roundtable with law enforcement officials in Charleston last year, Rockefeller learned first-hand about the situation of West Virginia children living in homes with meth labs and suffering because of their parents’ addiction. When he returned to Washington, he began pushing for today’s hearing, the first time in almost a decade that the Senate Finance Committee has held a hearing on child welfare.

“Today marks just the first step,” said Rockefeller. “We need to do more. These children are very vulnerable, and it’s important that we get to the bottom of the way that meth is affecting these children and disrupting the child welfare system itself.”

Rockefeller hopes that the hearing will lead to a bipartisan Senate effort that will provide services to the victims of methamphetamine, particularly children.

Last year, Rockefeller helped found the Senate Anti-Meth Caucus to promote states working together on anti-meth initiatives. The Caucus will investigate ways that the federal government could better coordinate its anti-meth efforts with state and local first responders.

Rockefeller is also calling for Congress to reauthorize the Safe and Stable Families Program, which is part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. The program invests in prevention services for families and support for adoption of children from the foster care system. Prior to 1997, less than 25,000 children were adopted from foster care on an annual basis, but today that number is over 40,000.

http://www.huntingtonnews.net/national/060427-staff-jay.html