Dr. Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak talk to Andrea Darr from Handle with Care West Virginia about her state’s drug crisis and the effect it is having on its children. She also shares the ways the Handle with CARE program helps these children.
Key Points

West Virginia is ground zero for the opioid crisis.
People are more likely to die from a drug overdose in West Virginia than in any other state in the county.
The origin of the opioid crisis was when physicians would give physical laborers (loggers, coal miners, etc) pain killers instead of surgery or physical therapy just so they would get right back to work.
Sometimes helpers unwittingly traumatize children.
For many misbehaving children, they would be better served by being sent to a school therapist than the school principal
The 3 parts of a Handle with Care program: Get Law Enforcement on board, make schools trauma-informed, have therapists on site at the schools.

Resources

Handle with Care
AHIDTA
124: Prevention- Trauma-Informed and Transformational Schools
More about ACE

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Transcript
Dave: [00:00:00] You're listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 168, Drug Endangered Children: Handle with Care.

Production Credits: [00:00:09] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

[00:00:29] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: [00:00:34] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: [00:00:36] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And today's guest, Sandie, is going to be such an important addition to our ongoing conversation on ending human trafficking. And also, very much connected to the theme upcoming for the Ensure Justice conference.

Sandie: [00:00:57] That's right. And by the time you're listening to this podcast, Andrea and her colleague, Chad Napier, will have been presenters here at Ensure Justice. And you'll have to go back and review that, and make sure you sign up for 2019.

Dave: [00:01:13] Well we are really pleased to welcome Andrea Darr to the show today. She is the director of the West Virginia's Center for Children's Justice, which promotes and supports a statewide trauma informed response to child maltreatment and children's exposure to violence. Before devoting her work full time on children's initiatives, Andrea served as the coordinator of Victim Witness services for the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Institute from 2005 to 2015. Andrea's also worked in direct services with victims of crime violence and abuse, while serving as the victim liaison in the Konneh County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. Andrea we're so glad to welcome you to Ending Human Trafficking.

Andrea: [00:01:56] Well, thank you so much for having me today.

Sandie: [00:01:59] So we're going to dig right into this podcast content because there's so much information that we'd love for you to explain for us. My first question is, can you explain what a drug endangered child is?

Andrea: [00:02:17] Sure. Drug endangered children are children whose lives have been adversely affected by their parents or caregivers, youth manufacturing, trafficking illegal substances. So, their children that experience a wide range of abuse and neglect because of the substances. For the most part, a neglect really stands out in this because a lot of times when people are addicted to drugs, you know that's their focus, that's their primary focus. It's the first thing they think about in the morning.