-Mary Chavez-Muramatsu and Mitchel J. Brown

The DEC Mission as a gateway to safety

A portal, as often conceptualized in fantasy literature, is akin to a magical gateway linking worlds separated by distance or fate.  Often the portal we see in fiction is an avenue to escape some dark force of evil thereby allowing the hero to reach a realm of safety. In our world, there is too often darkness for children when parents are engaged in activities surrounding addictive substances. Children are subjected to the risks of violence associated with illegal drug transactions as well as the health hazards that come with manufacturing drugs and the tragedy of neglect when parents are using. Yet in this void, drug endangered children (DEC) have no such portal to escape these dangers except that which is presented to them by strong and committed adults in the community.  Their portal is the opportunity to escape into another world and enter a reality of safety and nurturing provided by caring adults who can give them a drug-free life. 

Unable to receive basic parental support from parents who use or traffic drugs, drug endangered children suffer in homes marred by the emotional, physical and mental health problems that tend to accompany drug activity.  Often these children are exposed to a hazard or danger against which such they cannot reasonably be expected to protect themselves.  Separation from the dangers that accompany substance abuse and illicit drug activity serves as a gateway for a child’s entry into a healthy life, and serves as an avenue of escape from the void left by substance abuse. Hence, a portal. 

A child that is identified and removed from a drug home is given the opportunity to escape a life of instability and danger.  The essence of the campaign to rescue, defend, shelter and support children living in dangerous drug environments – and the reason for our DEC efforts -- has always been to lift children from the trapdoor of parental drug activity and connect them with a better life where their medical, educational and emotional needs are met.  That goal requires that children be identified and that first responders act swiftly to engage the network of professionals who will rescue, defend, shelter and support them. 

The First Responder in the Traditional Context

Historically, the term “first-responder” has been used to refer to persons with life-saving skills who are among the first to respond to emergencies related to hazardous materials.  In the context of drug endangered children, first responders are the individuals first on scene at a clandestine methamphetamine lab as well as other drug abuse calls.  Using their training in hazardous materials, these individuals respond to chemically contaminated environments and, identifying children in these venues, hasten to get them to safety.

Many first responders provide some measure of emergency medical care.   In some cases, first responders perform cursory medical assessments on persons who may have suffered burns or other symptoms of exposure to chemicals.  Depending on the outcome of their initial assessment, they often participate in efforts to decontaminate individuals or proceed to call for more advanced medical help.   

In many situations, first responders are law enforcement officers involved in the investigation of drug crimes, drug task force officers, emergency medical technicians and firefighters.  With the surge in the number of children identified at meth labs, child protective workers began to partner with law enforcement officials as first responders either in the removal of children from meth labs or in the very next stages of accomplishing safe, out-of-home placement immediately following the removal.  

Drug enforcement officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, and child protective workers encounter drug endangered children with astonishing frequency.  Their task of collaboration is crucial to successful medical and emotional outcomes for these children.  While such collaboration depends upon local partnerships and available resources at a community level, there are important elements that define a successful rescue of drug endangered children.  

The essential steps for first responders are laid out in numerous existing protocols around the country and they are premised on systematic and coordinated communication across disciplines about a child’s immediate endangerment and a collective willingness to collaborate to get the child out of immediate danger.  All first responder protocols begin with this proposition: only when a network of dedicated professionals becomes aware that a child is in danger from parental drug activity can it mobilize to rescue, defend, shelter and support that child. 

An Expanding Definition of “First Responder”

Because all children who live in drug environments are at risk of great bodily harm and are in need of immediate intervention, the notion of what it means to be a “first responder” has become more challenging.  Once loosely defined as the law enforcement officers and firefighters that responded to a meth lab and rescued children from that dangerous environment, it is now acknowledged that the intervention (recognition of the dangerous drug environment)  may come from and/or be initiated by a caring neighbor, school teacher, daycare provider, family member, CPS worker, law enforcement, probation/parole officer, treatment provider, code enforcement officer or some other non-traditional first responder. Getting away from the idea that first responders consist of exclusively those who identify children at meth labs, there is a growing interest in exploring additional points of first response when children are subjected to harmful conditions caused by parental drug activity.

With that task in mind, a dialogue began at the 2007 National DEC Conference in Kansas City about the role and nature of first responders, who fits the definition of a first responder and the essentials of first response and what communities should be doing in this area.  A First Responders Work Group was officially launched at the conference under the coordination of Mitch Brown, Police Chief of Oroville, Butte County, California.  The work group is now accepting additional members who wish to commit time and effort to the task of examining the parameters of First Response in the context of drug endangered children and also of developing First Responder guidelines as a support to new DEC teams and communities wishing to expand and build their existing DEC efforts.  Applications to become a member of this workgroup can be obtained through Susannah Carroll, National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children at scarroll@nationaldec.org.   

Mary Chavez-Muramatsu is an Assistant City Prosecutor in Spokane, Washington.  She is a former Assistant Iowa Attorney General and, in that capacity, was the Coordinator of the Iowa Drug Endangered Children Program.   

Mitchel J. Brown is the Police Chief of the City of Oroville, located in Butte County, California.  Mitchel is the Chair of the First Responders Workgroup and a long-time steering committee member of the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children.