The Collision of the Adoption and Safe Families Act and Substance Abuse: Research-Based Education and Training Priorities for Child Welfare Professionals

Abstract

ABSTRACT A large body of descriptive literature demonstrates the problem of substance abuse in child welfare. The 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) established time frames that make children's need for permanency the overriding priority in families involved with the child welfare system. Child welfare workers often lack proper knowledge and skill in assessing substance abuse issues that may underlie or obscure related psychosocial problems and how these issues affect the safety of children living in the home. Such training increases the prospects of immediate intervention and appropriate referral when a caretaker's substance abuse problem is identified. Research on substance abuse training of both child welfare professionals and social work students has received little empirical attention, and it predates the implementation of ASFA. Empirical evidence suggests that substance abuse training is related to positive changes in participants' knowledge, skills, and self-reported practice habits. An important step in national efforts to professionalize the child welfare workforce is to provide students with relevant substance abuse training. Such training would strengthen the efforts begun in 1980 when the Child Welfare Adoption and Assistance Act provided the impetus and resources under Title IV-E for professionalizing child welfare practice through agency-based training and social work degree-education. This article describes social work educational training content that prepares child welfare workers to perform skills needed in the current practice environment and concludes with recommendations for strategic social work educational priorities to ensure that child welfare workers are uniformly prepared to competently work with parents with substance abuse problems.