Parental Substance Abuse and Family Reunification

Abstract

This study examines the reunification outcomes of 4 groups of children placed in foster care in Oklahoma: those referred due to parental alcohol-only abuse, those due to parental drug-only abuse, those with both alcohol and drug involvement, and those with neither alcohol nor drug involvement. Following bivariate analysis to examine group differences, survival analysis was utilized to predict reunification rates. Overall, differences in time to reunification among the 4 groups were significant. The neither alcohol nor other drug group was significantly different from the other 3 groups, but the alcohol-only group was different from the groups that included any drug involvement.