DRUG TEAM HELPS KIDS LEFT BEHIND

When parents are jailed, group finds children new homes

They are the forgotten part of the equation when law enforcement agencies
raid a methamphetamine laboratory or arrest drug-using parents.

Kids left behind each year when their parents head to jail are shunted back
and forth among relatives, friends and neighbors for temporary shelter,
officials say.

No one keeps track of whether they go to school or even receive medical
services.

"We were never sure if the home they went to would be better -- maybe the
relatives themselves are drug users for all we know," said Dr. Wendy
Wright, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital who is a member of the
county's new drug-endangered children's team.

Set up with a $250,000-a-year state grant to help find appropriate homes
for kids whose parents are taken away by authorities, the team has been
developing multiagency cooperation that will involve a social worker in
every drug bust, Wright said. The grant will last three years.

The team also will make sure the children are not returned to the same
unhealthy environments. After the parents are released, the adults might
continue their drug habits, said Deputy District Attorney Robert Amador.

"People who make meth are not careful -- toxic chemicals can be absorbed by
inhaling or through the skin," Amador said. "You can find stains on the
carpet where babies crawl around. Many of them have tested positive for
narcotics. We need to treat these kids as victims of crime."

A pilot program in Oroville, southeast of Chico, reported that of 121
children taken into custody in 18 months of 1994 and 1995, 14 tested
positive for methamphetamine, said Susan Webber-Brown, a Butte County
district attorney's investigator in charge of the program.

The effects of environmental exposure to methamphetamine are not known
because there have been no studies, Webber-Brown said. One of the Butte
County kids, however, developed leukemia.

Of the children taken into custody when their parents were arrested, a
majority could not be returned home because their parents continued to use
drugs, and the kids were put up for adoption, Webber-Brown said.

In San Diego County, officials said they cannot predict the number of
children to be served by the program because there are no data to compare.
But a study is under way.

After four drug busts in February, five children from two families were
placed in foster care, according to Patti Rahiser, spokeswoman for the
county's Children Services Bureau.

The first year will concentrate on North County, where two-thirds of the
county's meth labs are believed to be, Amador said.

A social worker will coordinate among law enforcement agencies before a
drug bust or will be called in when an unexpected drug seizure occurs.

The worker will take the kids to Polinsky Children's Center, where they
wait for background checks on relatives or friends who can house them.
Those who do not have eligible relatives will be placed with foster
families or in other facilities.

At the same time, the District Attorney's Office will consider child
endangerment charges against the parents.

The Butte County program proved a reprieve to many kids, Webber-Brown said.

"The older teen-agers were embarrassed to live in the conditions at home --
the majority of them attended school infrequently because they didn't have
clothes to wear and or didn't fit in," she said. "The majority don't want
to go home until their parents are well."

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.