Addict With With Baby What Are Families Rights in New York State
New York State To Aid Children Of Drug Addicts
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October 6, 1989
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New York State would shift responsibility for treating the growing number of children born to drug-addicted parents from the Family unit Court organization to the State Health Department nether a beak beingness drafted in Albany.
State officials said the measure would ease the strain on overburdened courts and help coax drug-addicted parents to seek help for their children without fear of legal complications.
The pecker was described yesterday at a hearing in Manhattan by the State Senate Commission on Investigations, Taxation and Government, headed by State Senator Roy 1000. Goodman of Manhattan.
To be known as the Early Intervention Services Act of 1990, the measure is being drafted by the Interagency Analogous Quango, a 15-member trunk appointed by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo that represents four state agencies. Varied Disciplines
Under current police, parents of developmentally disabled children less than 3 years erstwhile must petition Family Court judges for special eduction and services for their children. Simply drug-addicted parents do not tend to brand requests of the courts, out of fear of legal problems for themselves, officials said.
The measure would identify the decisions for financing and providing services in the hands of a department that specializes in health and welfare issues rather than with a court system. And information technology would establish a statewide program that would telephone call upon varied disciplines to help families.
The measure out would apply to all children with developmental disabilities, simply the hearing focused only on those suffering from the effects of exposure to drugs, mainly crevice, before nativity.
Discussion of the measure out was the only hopeful note amid the dour statistics and pessimistic forecasts from speaker later on speaker. 'Facing a National Crisis'
Dr. Vincent Fontana, principal of staff of the New York Foundling Infirmary and chairman of the Mayor'due south Task Force on Child Abuse, set up the tone when he said: ''Crack-cocaine corruption among pregnant women has tripled since 1981. As many every bit 1 in 10 babies may take been exposed to cocaine before they were born. Reports of drug-related child abuse cases take surged by 72 percent in one twelvemonth. We are facing a national crisis on a scale never seen before: these babies will be dependent on social services for the rest of their lives.
''Despite this crisis,'' he added, ''prevention, intervention and treatment services for 'cleft babies' are seriously lacking.''
The proposed bill would try to provide some remedies. Equally Dr. Linda A Randolph, director of the State Function of Public Health, described it, the neb would expand efforts by community workers to reach women early on in their pregnancies. When the babies are born, an individualized program would exist formulated, and one social worker would be assigned to each family.
''Families volition be helped with everything from counseling to home visits,'' Dr. Randolph said. ''They would be given speech pathology, audiology, occupatioal therapy, physical therapy, medial and health services, help with developmental needs.'' Though no additional financing is being requested, $50 one thousand thousand from the Family Court upkeep would be diverted to the Wellness Department.
Other witnesses testified that efforts to cope with the crack crisis for newborns take not begun to bargain with the increasing number of scissure-fond significant women or their children.
''We have the only drug-complimentary residential programme that takes women in pregnancy and keeps them through their treatment,'' said Phyllis Savage, family middle managing director for Odyssey House, describing a program on Wards Island. ''But we have only 25 beds and a four-to-six-calendar month waiting menstruation. And so a woman who contacts us when she is pregnant will probably have given nativity by the time we can take her.''
Her vocalism breaking, Latisha Velasquez of the Bronx, a 32-year-erstwhile mother of five, described her progression through various drugs and her fourth dimension in prison. Only one of her children, a son at present four, was impaired through her drug apply. ''I was addicted during that pregancy, and he had a speech problem,'' she said. ''He was taken away from me, and at present his foster parents are adopting him.''
Drug gratuitous for ii years, Ms. Velasquez serves every bit a vounteer at the Lincoln Hospital accupuncture clinic, which helps pregnant women intermission their addictions. ''There are only 2 things drug utilise can atomic number 82 to,'' she said, ''jail or decease.''
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/06/nyregion/new-york-state-to-aid-children-of-drug-addicts.html
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