A US senator has been drawing attention to the strong correlation between substance abuse among parents and the entry of their children into state care – while at the same decrying what he has identified as a woeful lack of treatment services.

“Substance abuse by parents is the culprit in some 70 percent of child welfare spending,” Iowa’s Tom Harkin contends, “yet only ten percent of child welfare agencies report that they can find substance abuse programs for mothers and children.”

Research evidence generally supports Harkin’s argument. However, very few studies have considered the underlying premise that treatment for parents' substance abuse will help separated families to be reunited.

Portland researchers Beth L. Green, Anna Rockhill, and Carrie Furrer have lately investigated this key question and their findings are just published in Children and Youth Services Review. The US team examined treatment and child welfare data from over 1900 substance-abusing women in Oregon who had a child placed in out-of-home care during a six year period.

They found that treatment genuinely made a difference. Even after taking into account a variety of family characteristics, children whose parents completed it were nine times more likely to return home, and they spent, on average, 61 fewer days in substitute care than children whose parents did not stay the course. Additionally, parents who entered treatment faster following diagnosis had children who spent less time in substitute care.

Given the apparent importance of treatment, the difficulty parents often have finding and staying in substance abuse programs seems esepcially damaging. Green and her colleagues found that it took about four months, on average, for women in their study to enter treatment, and only about half of them completed it.

As the authors note, having a child taken away can be the type of crisis the spurs parents to action. Their research suggests that if such motivated parents can find and enter treatment, the whole family benefits – and, as Senator Harkin might note, governments save money.