Doctoral Dissertation Research: Parental Opioid Addiction and Kinship Care

该项目探讨了由于父母在阿片类药物流行中成瘾而对儿童的亲属照顾。最近，人们注意到类阿片流行病对吸毒者家庭造成的次要影响。其中一个影响是，生活在亲属照料安排下的儿童人数显著增加，即由祖父母、曾祖父母、阿姨/叔叔和其他亲属合法监护。数据将来自对至少有一方父母因吸毒成瘾而失去监护权的儿童家庭的采访和观察。这项研究将阐明这些家庭面临的具体挑战，并指出有助于改善孩子、亲生父母和亲属看护结果的策略。这项研究是在阿片类药物流行的一个中心进行的，那里9%的儿童生活在亲属照顾安排中。样本将包括目前或最近处于亲属照顾安排中的60个家庭。数据收集将包括两个部分：与这些家庭成员的访谈和对这些家庭子集的持续观察。研究者将研究亲属关怀安排是如何形成、概念化和体验的。通过追踪监护权的转移，他们还将调查国家和家庭之间的相互作用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project examines kinship care of children as a result of parental addiction in the opioid epidemic. Recently, attention has been drawn to the secondary effects that the opioid epidemic has inflicted on families of drug users. One such effect has been a significant rise in the numbers of children living in kinship care arrangements, that is, placed under the legal custody of grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts/uncles, and other relatives. Data will come from interviews with and observations of the families of children who have at least one parent who has lost custody because of drug addiction. This research will illuminate the specific challenges that such families face and point to strategies that could help improve child, birth parent, and kin caretaker outcomes.This study is based in one of the epicenters of the opioid epidemic, where nine percent of all children live in a kinship care arrangement. The sample will consist of 60 families, either currently or recently in a kinship care arrangement. Data collection will consist of two parts: interviews with members of these families and sustained observation of a subset of these families. Researchers will study how kinship care arrangements are formed, conceptualized, and experienced. Through tracking custody shifts, they also will investigate the interplay between the state and family.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.