Federal grant to help children of drug users

The Spokane area will receive a $742,000 federal grant to help children endangered by parents who use drugs.

The U.S. Department of Justice grant, applied for by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, will fund a program that studies how adults’ drug use affects children. The program will also help them through the trauma of the experience.

The program involves law enforcement, the courts, Child Protective Services, social service and health agencies, Educational Service District 101 and other groups. It tries to ensure that all the agencies work together to help drug-endangered children, said Mary Ann Murphy, executive director of Partners with Families and Children.

“The only way to affect the outcome for these children is by working together,” Murphy said.

While the program was originally going to focus on helping kids whose parents were arrested for making methamphetamine, the participants realized a broader approach was needed, said Esther Larsen, grant coordinator for the Sheriff’s Office. The program now includes children whose parents have any involvement in drugs, even if they aren’t making them at home, Larsen said.

One area the program explores is the harm that children in drug houses are exposed to, said Murphy. The study tracks both physical harm from the chemicals and emotional harm from being neglected by drug-dependent parents.

There are 38 children who have been identified as at-risk and are being tracked through the program, Murphy said. The number is expected to increase this year, Murphy said.

This week, the Spokane County Commission approved using funding from the grant to assign a full-time detective to deal with drug cases involving children.

The Spokane Police Department will also have a detective position funded by $92,000 from the grant. The Sheriff’s Office will get $120,000 of the grant money to pay for the detective and to manage the grant.

The grant runs through August of 2005 and the Sheriff’s Office plans to request a third year of funding, Larsen said.