As April marks Child Abuse Prevention Month nationally, the need for child protective services continues to reach crisis proportions for Lucas County Children Services as a direct result of the opioid epidemic.

Nearly 1,600 cases of abuse and neglect were confirmed by Lucas County Children Services last year alone. That represents a one-year increase of 9 percent. That is two-and-a-half times the number of confirmed cases as in 2011.

746 children entered the custody of Lucas County Children Services in 2017, a 25 percent increase from the year before. That is also more than 2.5 times the number of children in 2010.

The number of child abuse and neglect referrals continues to rise. There was a six percent increase in 2017, to 4,830 referrals for possible child abuse or neglect. Lucas County Children Services (LCCS) receives an average of 850 calls per month from concerned citizens, an increase of 100 calls per month from just two years ago.

The number of children served by LCCS in 2017 totaled 12,798. The number of families served totaled 5,129. Both are increases and represent an upward trend.

Lucas County is not alone. Those numbers reflect a disturbing statewide trend. 12,654 children were in the custody of child protective services in Ohio on July 1, 2013. Four years later, that number had climbed to 15,145 kids.

If entry rates continue at this pace, more than 20,000 Ohio kids will be in care on any given day by 2020, and the cost of placing them in foster homes and residential facilities—where more traumatized children can get the behavioral services they need—will surge by 67 percent to over half a billion dollars per year.

Last year in Lucas County, substance abuse was the most frequently identified reason for opening a case—a factor in 60 percent of child abuse or neglect cases. More than half of those cases involved heroin or opiates.

But that’s only the start of the devastation for children. Heroin and opiates have a dramatic impact on a parents’ ability to care for their children. As a result, in 81percent of the cases where heroin was an identified substance, children have entered LCCS custody. That compares to just under two-thirds of the cases where other drugs are being abused.

97 percent of the children with open cases at LCCS who were screened for trauma were found to have had at least one traumatic experience in their young lives. More than half had between one and three traumas.

In opiate-related cases, it is commonplace for the children to experience neglect, hunger, and trauma as they witness their parents abuse drugs or even overdose. The number of traumas they experience grows, as parents enter treatment and struggle to get clean multiple times—and in many cases, fail to get their lives back in order within the two-year state mandated time frame to get their kids back. That’s why LCCS has permanent custody of 50 youth on any given day awaiting new, adoptive families.

In Lucas County, the youngest children in our community are at the greatest risk for potential abuse or neglect. 42 percent of children on referrals in 2017 were under the age of six.

But the problem gets worse from there. Finding appropriate caregivers in a family becomes even more difficult in an opiate-related case. Frequently, drug addiction is intergenerational and spread among the family tree—brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, even grandparents. As a result, a child ends up in foster care much of the time.

At the end of March, there were 576 Lucas County children in foster care. But there were only 276 licensed foster homes to place them. That is why LCCS has launched a goal of establishing 400 more foster homes in the next year and beyond. A foster care recruitment team is giving presentations anywhere and everywhere they can.

Unfortunately, the opioid epidemic is showing no signs of letting up. According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control, drug overdose deaths in Ohio rose 36 percent again last year, according to statistics ending August 2017. Other studies show the rate may be as high as 40 percent or even worse, because the cause of death may not be recorded accurately.

County coroners across Ohio are starting to report their year-end statistics for 2017 and it shows a troubling trend. While heroin-related overdose deaths are starting to ease, an Associated Press article dated April 1 reported that overdose deaths related to fentanyl are showing a dramatic increase in Ohio.

Local and statewide authorities report large quantities of the illicit synthetic opioid made in China are making their way into the U.S., making fentanyl widely available on the black market and the dark web.

In fact, the increased availability of methamphetamines and a rebound in cocaine use—both combined with the powerful painkiller—in many cases, is creating a killer chemical cocktail that is responsible for much of the increase in statewide overdose deaths in 2017. Local law enforcement also is increasingly reporting that fentanyl is being mixed with marijuana—creating another lethal chemical concoction.

As this trend plays out across Ohio, the crisis situation at Lucas County Children Services and in child protective services agencies in all 88 counties only stands to get worse as a result of a new twist in the opioid epidemic.