The influx of opioid painkillers in Arkansas has burdened the state's foster care system, with more children being removed from homes because of parental drug use than in previous years, officials say.
In response, the Division of Children and Family Services is starting to collect better data about what separates families in hopes such work will lead to increased grant funding.
Mischa Martin, the agency's director, expects Arkansas' opioid epidemic to worsen in the coming years, but she thinks steps have been taken to prepare.
"I think we're heading in the right direction," Martin said. "I think Arkansas can be ready when it hits."
The state has already seen an increase in opioid prescribing. Overdose deaths related to opioids, including heroin and fentanyl, also have risen dramatically in the past decade.
Foster care cases climbed in concert with soaring opioid prescription rates, data show.
[INTERACTIVE MAP: Arkansas opioid prescribing rate]
In fiscal 2017, almost 54 percent of children, or 2,223 cases, were taken from their homes because of problems associated with family drug use, according to Children and Family Services Division records.
A lot of those cases, it's assumed based on in-field observations, involve opioids. By comparison, 23 percent of home-removal cases involved drugs or alcohol in fiscal 2005.
Parental drug use isn't the only reason children are removed from their homes, according to the Child and Family Services Division staff. Often, there are concurrent issues, such as abuse or neglect that stem from drug addiction.
As the number of child-removal cases associated with drug use rose, so did the rate of opioid prescribing, jumping from 98 prescriptions for every 100 people in 2007 to 115 per 100 in 2016, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures.
Spending for the state's foster care system also increased during that time.
By 2016, the system swelled to an all-time high of almost 5,200 children, growing 20 percent from the previous year.
Foster care funding, coming from the state's general revenue budget, increased by $26.7 million for fiscal 2018, which ends June 30.
Nationally, news reports, paired with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services statistics, also point to opioid misuse as a major factor in the removal of children from their homes.
Some states -- including Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine, North Dakota and Ohio -- reported that opioid abuse has overwhelmed their foster-care systems.
The numbers of children in foster care nationally had declined at the start of the decade, but between 2012 and 2015, the number went from 397,000 to 428,000, an 8 percent increase.
Meanwhile, overall child welfare spending shrank 5 percent between 2004 and 2014.
Arkansas' Children and Family Services Division, which falls under the purview of the Department of Human Services, is now examining how opioid abuse affects the state's foster care system.
Beginning last October, social workers became more specific when filling out case files in a new agency database, Martin said. If a parent tests positive in a drug screening, the type of drug is noted.
The goal is to get more "local and specific data," she added.
Having more specific numbers is key when asking for federal funding and developing programs to assist these families, she explained.
Division staff members also plan to direct more pregnant mothers struggling with drug and alcohol abuse to clinics that could help.
The agency is considering supporting legislation to require hospitals to report when a mother tests positive for any drug, even a prescribed one. The intent is identify which families may need extra help in advance and to work with them before they hit the welfare system.
Currently, the federal Child Abuse and Treatment Act requires division officials to establish a "plan of safe care" when a mother or infant tests positive for certain controlled substances. These plans vary on a case-by-case basis, but they often direct mothers to undergo substance abuse treatment.
In Arkansas, 18 percent of children who tested positive for drugs at birth, or those born to mothers who tested positive, entered state custody, Martin said.
"People are resilient," she added. "With the right supports in place, positive outcomes will happen."
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