Tag: News

Mom Charged with Homicide, Accused of Causing Infant's OD Through Breast Milk

An autopsy found methadone, amphetamine and methamphetamine in the 11-week-old’s system.

A Pennsylvania woman was charged with homicide after her infant son allegedly died of a drug overdose from drinking drugs through his mother’s breast milk.

Samantha Jones was charged Friday and held on $3 million cash bail for the tot’s April death after an autopsy found methadone, amphetamine and methamphetamine in the 11-week-old’s system, according to Bucks Local News.

At the time, the 30-year-old New Britain Township woman was prescribed methadone to help kick a painkiller addiction. She’d been breastfeeding the boy until three days before his death, when she switched to formula, she allegedly told investigators.

But around 3 a.m. the morning of April 2, the baby started crying and Jones decided to breastfeed, according to court records. It was late and she was tired, and she didn’t want to go downstairs for a bottle, she allegedly told investigators.

She wasn’t sure whether the child actually fed at all before she fell back asleep, she said. But when her husband woke up for work three hours later the child was crying, and his mother was in the other room. So he made the boy a bottle of formula, then Jones fed him, putting the child back to bed before falling asleep again herself.

When she woke up an hour later, the child was white, with bloody mucous dripping from his nose.

Jones shouted for her mother, who called 911 and tried saving the child with CPR. First responders rushed the baby to the hospital where he was pronounced dead an hour later in the emergency room.

The jailed mother also has a 2-year-old son, who is with his father, according to Jezebel. Jones is due back in court on July 23, though her lawyer argued for lower bail in the meantime, saying the death was accidental and she’s not a flight risk. Prosecutors asked for no bail at all, citing the possibility of a mandatory life sentence if the charge is upgraded from homicide to murder.

Although prosecutions for drug-laced breast milk appear to be rare, they’re not unprecedented. In 2014, a South Carolina mom was sentenced to 20 years behind bars after her baby girl died of a morphine overdose from breastfeeding.

View the original article at thefix.com

17 July 2018
Jeff Sessions Blocks MMJ Research, Despite Congress’ Approval

The DEA has been accepting applications for new growers of research cannabis for two years, but the program has not moved forward at all thanks to Sessions.

It’s been two years since the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) opened up applications for new growers of research cannabis, but two dozen applicants haven’t heard a peep from the federal government for one simple reason: Jeff Sessions doesn’t want it to happen.

The DEA decided to end the federal monopoly on growing cannabis for research purposes in 2016, opening up the opportunity to applicants from all over the United States. However, the licensing process has come to a standstill because Sessions has taken the unprecedented step of intervening in the DEA’s decisions.

Historically, the attorney general of the United States has not been involved in the regulation of scheduled drugs. Instead, the DEA has been in charge of such affairs, including “investigat[ing] the diversion of controlled pharmaceuticals and listed chemicals from legitimate sources while ensuring an adequate and uninterrupted supply for legitimate medical, commercial, and scientific needs.”

Objections to Sessions’ actions have come from both sides of the aisle, with Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Kamala Harris (D-California) sending a bipartisan complaint letter asking Sessions to provide a timeline for processing and potentially licensing these applicants.

“Expanded research has been called for by President Trump’s Surgeon General, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the FDA, the CDC, the National Highway Safety Administration, the National Institute of Health, the National Cancer Institute, the National Academies of Sciences, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse,” wrote the senators in their letter. “In order to facilitate such research, scientists and lawmakers must have timely guidance on whether, when, and how these manufacturers’ applications will be resolved.”

Sessions’ Department of Justice (DOJ) missed the March 15, 2018 deadline to provide this timeline and doesn’t seem to want to cooperate.

Four applicants contacted by Reason say they haven’t heard back from the DOJ or the DEA for months. Responses included:

“‘No formal communication,” “Hoping to hear more soon,” and “Just silence.”

Sessions has suggested that the DEA isn’t prepared to supervise these proposed cannabis manufacturers despite the DEA regularly supervising dozens of new non-marijuana drug manufacturers this year.

Senators Hatch and Harris have set a new deadline for Sessions to act on these applicants: August 11, 2018.

View the original article at thefix.com

17 July 2018
Puddle of Mudd’s Wes Scantlin Celebrates 11 Months Sober

Though his past is plagued with substance-fueled meltdowns, Scantlin is ready to stay clean and move on.

Wes Scantlin, the lead singer of the band Puddle of Mudd, is celebrating 11 months sober following his public struggle with substance abuse.

“The last year has been… Getting out of incarceration and then going to CRI-Help in Burbank, California, in North Hollywood, that was awesome — it was really great,” Scantlin said in an interview with Rock Titan. “I’m 11 months sober now almost to the day, and I feel great. And we’re just playing shows and rocking.”

Prior to these clean 11 months, Scantlin was raising all kinds of trouble with the law. Last September he was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for trying to bring on board a BB gun, resulting in being banned from LAX unless he absolutely had to travel for work. In January of 2016 he was arrested for allegedly breaking into a house he used to live in and vandalizing it. Compounding his legal troubles, he managed to miss court dates for both of these incidents.

Scantlin also had a drug- and alcohol- fueled meltdown on stage during a March 2016 concert in England. In a video of the event, Scantlin can be seen sitting on a wooden chair shirtless and flicking off his band mates as they abandoned him on stage. He rambled into the microphone as the crowd, growing increasingly annoyed with his antics, yelled expletives at him. Eventually, someone cut off his microphone but the damage had been done. These meltdowns, which reportedly included the singer taking swigs of liquor from a bottle and bragging about being high on cocaine, were a regular feature of Puddle of Mudd shows during that year, enraging fans and provoking a crowd in Ohio into booing the band off the stage. In Versailles, he was so intoxicated they forced him to sit down and lip sync most of the show.

In 2015, Scantlin was arrested six separate times, including one incident where he led sheriff deputies in Minnesota on a high speed car chase with speeds reaching 100 miles per hour before he was arrested for DUI. The breath test revealed a blood alcohol level over four times the legal limit.

But now that he’s clean, he reflects on where the idea of being a rock star came from.

“I saw Van Halen in 1984, on the ‘Jump’ tour, and I was, like, ‘I wanna do that,’” he said. “But you don’t see all the other stuff that goes with it. So I’ve learned to deal with it. And I’ve got a great family, and they’ve been behind me and supportive the whole time. And all the fans are all supportive. It’s good to stop doing something that’s killing you.”

View the original article at thefix.com

17 July 2018
Nation's First-Ever Execution Using Fentanyl Halted

A New Jersey drug company filed a lawsuit claiming the state had tricked a drug distributor into selling one of the drugs to be used in the execution.

What could have been the nation’s first-ever execution using fentanyl was called off Wednesday, after a New Jersey-based drug company filed suit over the planned use of one of its drugs in the Nevada death house.

After months of begging for death and waiving appeals, double murderer Scott Dozier was scheduled to die by lethal injection using an untested three-drug cocktail in what would have been the state’s first execution in more than a decade.

“I think it’s awesome. I mean, it’s killing people all over the place,” he told VICE News before his unwanted last-minute reprieve. “You guys get pharmaceutical grade fentanyl and just bang me up man.”

But the courts intervened, after drugmaker Alvogen accused the state of using “subterfuge” to secure one of the drugs in spite of the company’s insistence that it didn’t want its product used in “botched” executions.

It appears to be the first time a pharmaceutical company has successfully stopped an execution, experts told the Associated Press.

The challenge comes as death penalty states across the nation have struggled in finding ways to carry out their most severe punishment, sometimes switching methods or drugs as pharmaceutical companies become increasingly reluctant to see their drugs used in executions.

The current Nevada execution protocol—newly implemented after previous drug stocks expired—includes the controversial sedative midazolam, the opioid fentanyl and the paralytic cisatracurium. Midazolam has been linked to allegedly botched executions in Ohio, Arkansas, Alabama and elsewhere.

In Tuesday’s lawsuit, Alvogen said the state had tricked drug distributor Cardinal Health into selling them midazolam by having it sent to a pharmacy in Las Vegas instead of to the prison, according to CBS News.

“While Alvogen takes no position on the death penalty itself,” the company wrote in court filings, “Alvogen’s products were developed to save and improve patients’ lives and their use in executions is fundamentally contrary to this purpose.”

A state solicitor general pushed back against the lawsuit, saying Nevada didn’t do anything wrong and regularly has its drugs shipped to Las Vegas.

This wasn’t the first controversy Nevada faced over its execution drugs. Last year, Pfizer asked the state to return any drugs it planned using to kill prisoners—but prison officials refused. And this year, another pharmaceutical company voiced objections to the use of its drugs in lethal injections, though they didn’t take the step of filing a legal claim.

Dozier’s death sentence stems from a 2002 slaying when he lured 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller to the Las Vegas strip in order to rob him of $12,000 that he planned to buy ephedrine with, one of the ingredients needed for making meth. After shooting Miller in the head, police say Dozier let him bleed out in a bathtub before dismembering him, stuffing his torso and some limbs into a suitcase, then tossing it in a dumpster.

Afterward, Dozier’s friends started coming forward with tips about the case. One even told police he’d spotted a body holding its own head inside Dozier’s hotel room. A jailhouse snitch alleged that he’d helped Dozier bury a man in the middle of the Arizona desert in 2001—and he led investigators to a dismembered body. Dozier was convicted in the Copper State case before he was transferred back to Nevada to stand trial for the would-be meth-maker’s slaying.

While in jail for the Arizona murder—one in which he still maintains his innocence—Dozier tried killing himself by overdosing on antidepressants, which landed him in a coma for two weeks.

“I’m not looking for mercy,” he told the Marshall Project. “Nevada said stop behaving this way or we will kill you, and I kept behaving that way.”

So, in 2016, he penned a letter to the judge, waiving his appeals and begging for execution. So-called “volunteers” are a death row rarity, and Dozier’s gregarious pursuit of death attracted national attention.

Now, it’s not clear when he might face another death date, though a Clark County judge this week scheduled a hearing for September.

View the original article at thefix.com

17 July 2018
FDA: Limiting Opioids Won't Curb Crisis, Responsible Prescribing Will

The FDA commissioner issued a statement addressing the stigma aimed at pain patients and the need for providers to take a patient-centric approach.

Strict opioid prescribing regulations are harming some chronic pain patients, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.

On Monday, July 9, the FDA released a statement about its Patient-Focused Drug Development Meeting, during which Gottlieb brought up the struggles some patients face because of strict opioid prescribing laws.

According to PatientEngagementHIT, there are some instances in which patients, such as those those facing “metastatic cancer pain management and chronic migraine management,” are best fit for a long-term opioid prescription.

“Tragically, we know that for some patients, loss of quality of life due to crushing pain has resulted in increased thoughts of or actual suicide,” Gottlieb said in the statement. “This is unacceptable. Reflecting this, even as we seek to curb overprescribing of opioids, we also must make sure that patients with a true medical need for these drugs can access these therapies.”

While Gottlieb acknowledges that prescribing regulations are necessary in order to fight the opioid crisis, he also says those strategies are negatively affecting patients who rely on the medications for pain management.

Gottlieb and his colleagues have learned through patient workgroups that patients in need of pain management say they feel stigmatized and have a difficult time building healthy relationships with care providers.

According to Gottlieb, simply banning opioids or increasing the difficulty of obtaining a prescription is not the solution to the issue. He says instead, better education needs to be available to providers and opioid prescribing should take a “patient-centric” approach, taking patient “preferences, needs, and patient education approaches” into account.

“Balancing the need to maintain access with the mandate to aggressively confront the addiction crisis starts with good medical management,” Gottlieb said in the statement. “All patients in pain should benefit from the skillful and appropriate care of their pain. It’s also critical that we take this same aggressive approach to changing the culture of medicine around treating pain… Patients in pain deserve thoughtful, careful and tailored approaches to the treatment of their medical conditions.”

The statement also outlines steps the FDA has taken to push responsible prescribing methods. For example, the FDA released a blueprint for drug manufacturers focusing on how they can educate prescribers. Additionally, the FDA is working with medical professionals to develop resources for clinicians.

“We need to be mindful of this history, learn from it and make sure that we act aggressively to confront new trends that may continue to fuel the current crisis or lead to a new epidemic of addiction,” Gottlieb explained.

The FDA also stated that combating the opioid crisis should not involve limiting or banning opioids, but instead has to do with better education about practices.

“Our goal is to support more rational prescribing practices, as well as identify and encourage development of new treatment options that don’t have the addictive features of opioids,” Gottlieb said in the statement. “In this way, we’ll help ensure that we’re not unnecessarily putting patients as risk of addiction by overprescribing opioids, while also maintaining appropriate access to care for patients with serious pain. In pursuing these goals, we must make sure that patients inform our work.”

View the original article at thefix.com

17 July 2018
News Groups Demand Opioid Distribution Data Be Made Public

Media outlets want access to the info to support their coverage of the opioid epidemic and increase public accountability by manufacturers.

Some of the nation’s top news organizations, including the Washington Post, are demanding that the federal government release information about the sale and distribution of controlled substances by pharmaceutical distributors and manufacturers.

The information, which is part of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) federal opioid distribution database, was turned over as potential evidence in the hundreds of lawsuits filed against pharmaceutical companies for their alleged role in the national opioid crisis.

The media outlets want access to the information to support their coverage of the opioid epidemic and increase public accountability by manufacturers.

As the Associated Press reported, the government consented to submit opioid distribution data culled from 2006 to 2014 from its registry to these lawsuits, but with the requirement that it only be used for legal and law enforcement purposes.

But on July 9, 2018, lawyers for the Washington Post and HD Media, which owns West Virginia’s Charleston Gazette-Mail, filed a request in a Cleveland federal court for release of the records. The Associate Press, along with other news groups, has also requested access to the information.

“Where releasing records would merely bring embarrassment or adverse publicity to a corporation or a government agency, the records must be disclosed,” wrote Post lawyer Karen Lofton in a court filing on July 9. “In this case, disclosure of the distribution data would cause no conceivable harm to patients or other innocent individuals. If anything, their interests would be advanced by the public accountability that would be demanded in the wake of such disclosures.”

Pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors are opposed to a public release of the information, as is the government, which argued in a court filing in June that making public the database information would have a negative impact on not only the companies’ distribution methods, but also criminal investigations and state public record laws.

But lawyers countered by pointing to a 2016 article by the Gazette-Mail that revealed that drug companies made available more than 700 million pills to West Virginia residents between 2007 and 2012, a period in which more than 1,700 individuals in the state died from opioid overdoses.

The Gazette-Mail obtained the information from drug shipping sales records sent by the DEA to West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey’s office and made public by a West Virginia district judge.

The lawyers presented the decision to release the information and the story that resulted as a prime example of why the national distribution data should be made public.

View the original article at thefix.com

16 July 2018
A-Bombs & Bruno Mars: DEA Releases 2018 Drug Slang Guidebook

The unclassified guidebook is intended to help law enforcement personnel navigate the lingo used to refer to drugs.

High Times has noted, with no small degree of amusement, that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), has issued the 2018 edition of its handbook “Slang Terms and Code Words: A Reference for Law Enforcement Personnel,” which presents both new and evergreen terms for drugs and related issues, including sales, measurements and geographical locations.

According to the National Drug Early Warning System, a research group funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the unclassified guidebook is intended to assist law enforcement personnel in navigating the myriad of slang terms used to refer to drugs.

The 2018 edition is laid out in a manner similar to the 2017 guidebook, which presented long-standing terms with newer ones in italics, but adds a cross-referenced alphabetical list, which boosts the page count to 125—several times larger than the seven-page 2017 edition.

According to the High Times report, marijuana has the largest single entry in the listing, incorporating both widely known terms like “pot” and “reefer” with more obscure and enduring terminology like “cheeba,” “dank” and “Acapulco Gold.”

Among the 2018 additions are “A-bomb,” which is used to describe marijuana mixed with heroin; “manteca” (a relatively venerable term with Afro-Cuban heritage reaching back to the 1940s) to; “green crack” and “greenhouse,” and “bionic,” which is marijuana mixed with PCP.

Several strains of marijuana also make the list, including Tangie OG—spelled Tangy OG in the guide—Girl Scout Cookies and Train Wreck.

Synthetic cannabinoids also enjoy a diverse lexicon, ranging from “kush” and “spice” to what the guide labels as newer brand names like “Bombay Blue” and “Yucatan Fire,” while marijuana concentrates/hash oil—a new listing for 2017—are a similar mix of established nomenclature (“dabs”) and terms well known in marijuana culture and less so among law enforcement (“rosin,” “bubble hash”).

Cocaine and heroin both sport their own substantial lists, with “chicanitas,” “comida dulce” and “puma” among the former’s new terms (though the DEA has apparently never heard of the pungent “Booger Sugar” prior to this list) and “chocolate shake,” “churro negro” and “huera” currently trending, so to speak, for heroin.

“Goofballs”—a Beat Generation term used to describe heroin mixed with methamphetamine—also appears to have been revived for the 2018 list.

Substances like steroids (“Arnolds,” “gym candy”), PCP (“Ashy Larry”), mescaline (“love flip,” when mixed with ecstasy) and GBH (“Bruno Mars”) each merit a listing, as do measurements—one kilogram has apparently been referred to as a “can of paint” or “pillow”—and the cities of Los Angeles (Los Shorts) and New York (Towers or Up Top).

A lengthy list of miscellaneous terms for very specific activities is also included, (i.e., Coordinates of Maritime Rendezvous Sites and Smuggling Route are “Las Dirrecciones”). The guidebook concludes with a massive alphabetical list for easier reference.

View the original article at thefix.com

16 July 2018
Prescription Opioid Use And Its Connection To The Criminal Justice System

A new study examined the link between people with a history of prescription opioid use and their involvement with the criminal justice system.

Individuals with a history of opioid use are up to 13 times more likely to be involved in some manner with law enforcement or justice system officials, including arrest, parole or probation.

Those are the conclusions suggested by a new study that explored what NPR described as the “intersection of the criminal justice system and the ongoing opioid epidemic.”

Data from more than 78,000 respondents to a national survey on drug use found that prescription opioid users were more likely to have some involvement with the criminal justice system than those with no history of opioid use; opioid users were also more likely to suffer from chronic health issues and have higher susceptibility to overdose upon release from the prison system.

The study authors also suggested that greater access to alternatives to incarceration or treatment within the prison system could have a significant impact on lowering these rates.

The study, conducted by researchers from New York University, the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Kaiser Permanente’s Institute for Health Research, among other institutions, examined information culled by the National Survey on Drug and Use and Health from 78,976 respondents—all U.S. residents between the ages of 18 and 64—including substance use, socioeconomic status and health.

Involvement with the criminal justice system was defined by three criteria: whether the respondent had been recently arrested, released on parole or placed on probation.

The data suggested that only 3% of the general population with no history of opioid use—prescription or other forms, like heroin—fell into those three categories.

However, 20% of respondents who said that they had a dependency on prescription opioids and 40% of those who reported using heroin had some level of involvement with the criminal justice system.

The data also revealed that individuals reporting opioid use or dependency were more likely to have some form of health issue, whether a mental illness or chronic health conditions like asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Using this information, the researchers opined that the criminal justice system needed greater involvement in providing treatment for individuals with opioid dependency.

They noted that many prison systems do not offer medication-assisted treatment (MAT), which has been regarded as the most effective means of treating opioid issues by several studies.

Individuals in the criminal justice system who do not receive some form of treatment are more likely to experience a lower tolerance to opioids and in turn, a greater chance of overdose upon release, according to 2012 research conducted with former inmates.

Study lead author Tyler Winkelman, a clinician-investigator at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, also suggested that placing individuals in treatment facilities instead of jails may prove more effective in breaking the cycle of dependency and incarceration. “We need a response that will ideally prevent people from entering the criminal justice system,” he noted.

The NPR coverage cited a 2016 study, which reviewed rates of death by overdose among inmates exiting the Rhode Island Department of Corrections after it began a medication-assisted treatment program for its prison population. The study suggested that overdose deaths dropped by nearly 61% among that demographic—an “unheard of” drop in mortality rates, according to study author Josiah Rich, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Brown University.

“At this point of the epidemic, we can’t afford to not put people on treatment,” he added.

View the original article at thefix.com

16 July 2018
Artie Lange: Howard Stern "Did Not Understand Addiction"

The comedian opened up about addiction, alcoholism and his relationship with former boss Howard Stern on an episode of the Dopey Podcast.

Artie Lange, best known for his gig as the “everyman” sidekick on The Howard Stern Show, recently opened up about how addiction destroyed his relationship with the legendary shock jock.

Lange’s struggle with substance abuse has been lengthy and highly publicized. Over the years, the troubled comedian has routinely bottomed out while in the spotlight, ranging from canceled stand-up appearances to his suicide attempt in 2010.

He’s also had his police mugshot taken a number of times during his career, including three arrests in 2017 alone. Still, perhaps the most infamous fallout from Lange’s demons remains his firing from Stern at the end of 2009—a blow that clearly casts a long shadow across Lange’s career.

Guesting on the Dopey Podcast, Lange revealed just how unmanageable his life had become in 2009 thanks to cocaine, heroin, pills and booze. Despite seeing the root of his problems, Lange’s behavior ended his otherwise wildly popular run on the radio show.

Even worse than his addled on-air appearances, Lange suggested, was the uncomfortable position he had put Stern in.

“Howard did not understand addiction. He gave me the best job ever and he is a genius,” he affirmed on the podcast. “I was on the show for over eight years, but towards the end I was a complete addict.”

Lange likened his relationship with Stern to “a son-and-dad kind of thing,” which potentially made Stern’s decision to fire the comedian more complicated.

Lange also disclosed that he was earning $4 million a year from The Howard Stern Show, in addition to a variety of other opportunities, such as a starring role in the 2006 comedy Beer League.

Shortly after being let go from Stern, Lange’s drug problems and depression worsened. In 2010, he attempted suicide. And while Lange eventually recovered from the incident, it’s obvious that he hasn’t entirely gotten over being fired from the highly-rated program.

In recent months, Lange has even taken to blasting his former boss on social media, threatening to post Stern’s private phone number online. Interestingly, as Lange continues to escalate the feud, he doesn’t fault Stern when it comes to comprehending the true depths of his addiction.

“He didn’t know the extent of it. There’s no way he could’ve,” he told Uproxx. Lange added that even though Stern couldn’t grasp just how far gone the comedian was, he tried to get Lange the help he so desperately needed.

Stern even connected him with a therapist, put him into a treatment center, and encouraged him to take all the time he needed to find sobriety.

During the podcast interview, though, Lange indicated that Stern’s efforts were as generous as they were futile. Lange was straightforward and serious about the reality of his addictions, admitting that he might soon relapse and never find long-term sobriety.

View the original article at thefix.com

16 July 2018
Non-Profit Launches Foster Care Program For Kids Affected By Opioid Crisis

The Georgia-based program is “designed to help children from newborns to the age of 21 years find a loving home.”

A Georgia nonprofit called Christian City Children’s Village has plans to begin its own foster care system due to the alarming number of children being left parentless at the hands of the opioid crisis.

According to a media release on the organization’s website, foster care needs in the state have increased 100% in the past five years, bringing the total number of children to more than 15,000.

In February, Christian City introduced the Crossroads Foster Care & Adoption Program, which provides “private and public foster care, foster-to-adoption and public adoption” for children within a 50-mile radius of Union City, Georgia.

“We wanted to respond to this issue by increasing the number of loving homes available to children in foster care and that is when we decided to launch the Crossroads program,” Len Romano, President & CEO of Christian City, said in the release.

The program serves newborns to age 21 and provides training, home studies, support and access to the Christian City thrift store for families that are interested in adoption or foster care.

According to the website, the program is “designed to find and equip wonderful families for children in need of a loving home… Permanency is the ultimate goal for each child through either reunification with the child’s birth family or adoption.”

“We offer a crisis program for the foster child and adoptive parents. If a caregiver reports to us the child is under distress when acclimating to their new environment, we bring the child back onto the Christian City Children’s Village campus for 48 hours. Here, we give the child the attention and any skills they may need to help them reintegrate into their new home,” Michaela Guthrie, Program Executive for the Crossroads Foster Care and Adoption Program, said in the media release.

Beginning July 1, Christian City started a contract with the state of Georgia to assist the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) in placing children in appropriate foster or adoptive homes.

In other words, CBS46 states, children from the DFCS can be referred to the Crossroads Foster Care & Adoption Program.

“A lot of children who come into the foster care system have faced various types of trauma, whether it be abuse or neglect,” Guthrie told CBS46. “So, we really want to make sure that the families that will be taking care of them from this point in time and maybe a forever home.”

View the original article at thefix.com

14 July 2018