child services

Cuyahoga County’s Department of Child and Family Services is planning listening sessions and other changes at the agency in the wake of a four-year-old Euclid girl’s death earlier this year.

The announcement comes after the March death of Aniya Day-Garrett. The girl’s mother and mother’s boyfriend have been charged with aggravated murder in the case.

A county spokeswoman says DCFS had been called to the home in the past. Protesters gathered outside the department’s headquarters after the death. 

Ohio’s foster care system has seen a significant increase in the number of children in protective custody.  It’s one of the ripple effects of the opioid crisis.  Last year, for example, a one-year-old was revived with Narcan after overdosing on an unknown opioid in Akron.  The child and the child's 9-year-old sibling were removed from the home and placed in the custody of Summit County Children's Services.  

The local governments suing drug companies over the opioid crisis say addiction has cost them—not just in damage to people’s lives, but in dollars and cents.

It’s hard to come up with a price tag, though. Numerous different agencies handle prevention, treatment and response to overdoses. The federal government, state of Ohio, foundations and local communities are all paying for the epidemic.

While the crisis hasn’t broken local budgets in the Mahoning Valley, it has burdened them, agency officials say.

Stopping Opioids At The County Jail

A new government report says the number of children in the U.S. foster care system has increased for the fourth year in a row, due largely to an uptick in substance abuse by parents.

The report, issued annually by the Administration for Children and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services, shows that 437,500 children were in foster care by the end of fiscal year 2016. A year earlier the number was 427,400.