Alcohol and other drug abuse are major problems for the children and families involved with public child welfare. Substance abuse compromises appropriate parenting practices and increases the risk of child maltreatment.  It is estimated that one-half of children taken into foster care in Illinois are removed from families with serious drug problems. Because untreated substance abuse delays reunification, children removed from such families tend to remain in care for a long time. As a result of this delay, as many as 70 percent of children in foster care on any given day are from families in which alcohol and other drug abuse presents significant barriers to rehabilitation and permanence.

In 1999, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services applied for a Title IV-E waiver to improve reunification and other family permanency and safety outcomes for foster children from substance abusing families. To achieve this purpose, we developed an intervention with Recovery Coaches to assist birth parents with obtaining needed AODA treatment services and in negotiating departmental and judicial requirements associated with drug recovery and concurrent permanency planning. USDHHS approved the State’s application in September of 1999 and the demonstration was implemented in April of 2000.  Dr. Joseph Ryan with the Children and Family Research Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the principal investigator and independent evaluator for this demonstration.