CHILD WELFARE CRISIS GROWS WITH METH USE

In California and across the nation, methamphetamine addiction is
tearing apart families and sending growing numbers of children into
foster care.

The drug's impact on child welfare has become so severe, it now
compares to the crack cocaine crisis of the 1980s, according to a
national report released Thursday by Generations United, a group that
focuses on the needs of grandparent caregivers.

Among the report's findings:

Even as overall entries into foster care are decreasing, child
welfare agencies across the nation report an increase in cases
stemming from parental methamphetamine abuse.

40 percent of law enforcement agencies call meth their top drug problem.

In California, 71 percent of counties report an increase in
out-of-home placements due to meth over the past five years.

In counties with meth problems, 48 percent report that an increasing
number of families cannot be reunified, 56 percent say reunification
takes longer, and 27 percent say reunifications that do occur are
less likely to last.

47 percent of those treated for meth abuse are women.

Pittsburg resident Cheryl Barrett, 46, knows all too well how meth
can devastate a fragile family.

When she first tried the drug, she was a 28-year-old single mother
looking to let loose a little.

Meth, also known as crank, seemed the perfect fit: It allowed her to
party with friends all night, make it to work in the morning and
still keep a clean house.

"It's such a cunning enemy that you don't really realize where the
recreation turns to obsession, but that's what happens," Barrett
said. "There gets to be a point where you can't function without it
- -- any little excuse and you need to have it. . . . Pretty soon, to
go shopping you need to get high, just for that energy."

Over the next 12 years, she sunk ever deeper into her addiction. "In
the end, I wasn't working; I was barely maintaining the household. My
children were hungry and dirty. . . . That's when they were removed from me."

When police discovered a makeshift meth production lab in the home
where Barrett lived, she was arrested and her kids were taken into foster care.

Barrett spent seven and a half months in county jail, a period she
now sees as crucial to her recovery. Suddenly, she had time to
contemplate the mess she had made of her life, to realize why she
needed treatment for her addiction.

"When I look back at it now," Barrett says, "I don't know who that
person was that parented my children, because that's not who I am today."

Methamphetamine abuse isn't confined to any single geographic area or
economic group, said Carol Carrillo, executive director of Contra
Costa's Child Abuse Prevention Council, and a member of the county's
task force on drug-endangered children.

"It's the drug of choice right now for parents and caretakers," she
said. "People don't realize how addictive it is. . . . It's not that
these people aren't good people, it's that the drug becomes so
important in their lives."

Among people seeking treatment through county programs, meth
continues to rank as the most abused drug, said Haven Fearn, director
of alcohol and other drug services for Contra Costa County.

Addicts will say the pleasure they get from meth is "10 times greater
than that of sex," said Fearn.

"But addiction to methamphetamine is treatable. . . . There are
people who recover from their addictions to this drug."

Among those seeking treatment slots, the highest priority goes to
mothers and pregnant women, Fearn said.

Contra Costa County does not track the number of children who end up
in out-of-home placement because one or both parents are abusing
meth, said Debi Moss, a division manager for Children and Family Services.

"If you've been in the business for awhile, you know that drugs
cycle," said Moss. "There tends to be a drug of choice. . . . One of
the complexities of this particular drug is that it's so cheap to produce."

In the early years of Contra Costa's meth epidemic, police and child
welfare workers often found children living alongside makeshift
production labs which exposed them to toxic chemicals and posed a
constant risk of explosion.

Aggressive law enforcement has since shut down many of these "mom and
pop" labs, observers say. More common today are abuse or neglect
cases found in the chaotic households headed by methamphetamine addicts.

Generations United is asking federal lawmakers to respond to the meth
epidemic by loosening restrictions on child welfare funding to allow
grandparents and other relatives to become permanent, subsidized
guardians. The group also is asking for expansion of family drug
courts and family treatment programs.

"We need to be able to support children and the people who step in to
care for them," said Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United.

Now sober for more than five years, Barrett has rebuilt her
relationship with her children and found a new career.

Today, she works as a Parent Partner in the county's child welfare
department, helping other mothers and fathers follow the necessary
steps to regain custody of their children.

Occasionally, her clients turn out to be people she used to know
during her meth-abusing days.

"I find that I have more power with them because they see where I
came from and where I'm at today," Barrett says. "They believe that
if you can do it, I can do it . . .

"For parents to see that success can happen, that your life can
change -- it's everything to them."

Sara Steffens covers poverty and social services.