Help for Substance-Abusing Mothers

This letter is in response to the editorial “Next Generation Drug Problems; The Women and Their Babies Need Earlier Attention” (June 16). I think your readers should be aware of a program through Orange County social services that is providing early intervention to pregnant and non-pregnant substance-abusing mothers.

The Orange County Social Services Agency, in conjunction with the Orangewood Children’s Foundation, was recently awarded a federal grant to develop a program to prevent the abandonment in hospitals of infants and young children who may have been exposed to drugs or who have acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

The Abandoned Infants Assistance Program will target pregnant women and mothers who have recently delivered, and their families, who are at high risk of abandoning a child in the hospital. The program will offer aggressive outreach, individual case management with coordination, flexible respite care services and specialized placement services for those families that cannot be united with their children.

The program will work closely with the staff of local hospitals and other referring agencies to serve the identified client population. It is hoped these aggressive service strategies will confront parental substance abuse and that early intervention may treat a parent’s substance abuse problem and promote the appropriate and proper caretaking abilities of parents to assure a child’s safety.

SHARON ZEPEL, Senior Social Service Supervisor, Orange County Social Services Agency