National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children (NADEC) developed work groups to better meet the goals of providing training and technical assistance to the field.  Each work group is headed by a chair and has 10-12 participants comprised of different disciplines.  They have 2008 goals and communicate through monthly conference calls, e-mail and several face-to-face meetings to complete their projects. The current work groups are:

Building a State DEC Alliance
Education & Training                                                             
Environmental & Medical
Initial Response, Assessment & Decision Making
Needs Assessment & Data Collection
Neurodevelopmental and Psychosocial Assessment & Intervention for DEC
Prevention
Treatment and Intervention
Tribal Nations

The following articles give a brief overview of the current progress of each work group.

“Building a DEC” Work Group

“Building a DEC…” If you weren’t looking carefully you might think someone was writing about building a nice place off the back of their home to entertain guests on warm summer evenings.  Building a Drug Endangered Children (DEC) Alliance is a very different task, yet, just like building a deck, it requires planning, the right tools, skilled people, and support.

In October 2007, the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children (NADEC) Building a State Drug Endangered Children Alliance Work Group developed an action plan to help provide the tools, skills, and support to State DEC Alliances.  

 Current projects include:

• Assist NADEC to develop state alliances
• Collaborate with NADEC workgroups to publish DEC-related materials
• Develop a “Building a Local DEC Effort” guide
• Create a “Developing a State DEC Alliance” guide
• Adding a review of “Best Practice” initiatives to the yearly NADEC Conference
• Develop a certification criteria and ongoing training for state and local DEC alliances

Clearly, this is an ambitious plan. But, the work group feels it is necessary to continue to grow DEC alliances across the United States. We want to have a positive influence on the lives of children who are impacted by parental or caregiver substance abuse. 

Education and Training Work Group

The Education and Training Work Group’s 2008 goals originally involved training to develop a state dec alliance.  However, we received funding from the Regional Policing Institute to develop curriculum for law enforcement and social services training. It’s still in the development stages but stayed tuned for more information in the next newsletter.

Environmental and Medical Work Group

The Environmental and Medical Work Group is dedicated to developing a health-based methamphetamine clean-up standard. We want to provide knowledge about other environmental and medical issues related to drug endangered children.  This group will disseminate information about research and publications and be a source of expertise.  What follows are some examples of recent developments. 

After years of concern regarding clean-up standards for residual methamphetamine in clandestine laboratories and their relationship to potential health effects, several new papers are being published.  Two documents have just been released by the California EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). Both of these papers were written by Dr. Charles B. Salocks, an OEHHA toxicologist and an active member of the NADEC Research and Medical Working Group.  A third document, written by Tracy Hammon, discusses higher reference doses.

The first paper, “Development of a Reference Dose (RfD) for Methamphetamine,” identifies a “concentration of methamphetamine, below which adverse health effects are not likely to occur.”  Dr. Salocks based his analysis on a study of weight gain in pregnant women who were administered methamphetamine for 16 weeks (Chapman, 1961).  The lowest effective dose was 0.08 mg/kg-day.  After incorporating uncertainty factors, Dr. Salocks arrived at a sub-chronic RfD for methamphetamine of 0.3 ug/kg-day.   This document also presents a great literature review of papers reporting on potential human health effects caused by exposure to methamphetamine.

The second California paper, “Assessment of Children’s Exposure to Surface Methamphetamine Residues in Former Clandestine Methamphetamine Labs, and Identification of a Risk-Based Cleanup Standard for Surface Methamphetamine Contamination,” evaluated children’s exposure to methamphetamine residues on indoor surfaces.  Results of this analysis were combined with the RfD to calculate a risk-based cleanup standard for surface methamphetamine residues of 1.5 ug/100 cm2 .  This standard is somewhat higher than standards that have been adopted by many states, based primarily upon the analytical detection limit of methamphetamine. 

A third article entitled “Support for Selection of a Methamphetamine Cleanup Standard in Colorado” by Tracy Hammon (at the time a toxicologist with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment) was published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Journal in February 2007. Hammon primarily used animal data to suggest a reference dose which resulted in somewhat higher doses than did the Salocks paper (5 – 70 ug/kg-day).  The Hammon paper evaluated the current cleanup levels established by many states and found that they would provide a protection level that was 100-to 10-fold.  For instance, a cleanup level of 0.5 ug/100 cm2 would result in a dose of 0.2 ug/kg-day which would be below the lowest reference dose of 5 ug/kg-day. 

All three of these papers are available online. They each contribute to our understanding of the toxicological concerns regarding residual methamphetamine exposures to children.  

Initial Response, Assessment and Decision Making Work Group

The Initial Response, Assessment and Decision Making Work Group will develop and share best practices and protocols for the professionals who deal every day with drug endangered children.  One of our 2008 goals is to collect examples of Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) between different disciplines.  The MOU’s will be used as a starting point to create DEC curricula for police academies and universities. 

The members of the Initial Response Work Group work hard to make a difference in the lives of kids and families. Their goal is to break the cycle of substance abuse and prevent crime and child abuse. The members of this work group believe their work can change lives, and they are looking to recruit more dedicated participants.  They are interested particularly in firefighters, EMTs and people from schools and community organizations.

Needs Assessment and Data Collection Work Group

The Needs Assessment and Data Collection Work Group members are from various backgrounds. Our goal is to facilitate the collection of information important to furthering drug endangered children efforts.

Data obtained from the 2006 Data Collection Survey clearly indicate that there is no uniform definition or mechanism to track drug endangered children across the nation. The long-term goal of this group is to establish a nationwide, consistent definition of a drug endangered child and to institute national tracking of drug endangered children information. This will be an essential step in providing a clear understanding of the true impact child endangerment related to drug use has on our society.

Currently, a pilot  survey targeted at state child welfare agencies is being conducted that will help to better delineate the diversity of definitions and data collection efforts around the country.  This group currently has five dedicated members and they invite any individuals who may be interested in joining their efforts. 

Neurodevelopmental and Psychosocial Assessment & Intervention Work Group

The Neurodevelopment and Psychological Assessment and Intervention Work Group evolved from the previous Psychosocial work group.  The new team had their first conference call on December 12, 2007 and it proved to be very productive.  We are currently collecting and sorting through published literature to identify research, and compile and develop resources addressing the clinical and educational needs for drug endangered children. Our 2008 goal includes developing a fact sheet for foster parents and child protective services workers. We also will review eight articles and post our comments on the resource center web site.

Prevention Work Group

The Prevention Work Group is still in the development stages. We are in the process of recruiting and defining our 2008 goals.  If you’re interested in prevention work, contact NADEC for more information.

Treatment and Intervention Work Group

The Treatment and Intervention Work Group has created a plan for NADEC web site users to get more information on treatment.  The information will be geared for those who have absolutely no knowledge about treatment to those who have years of experience. 

Tribal Nations Work Group

The Tribal Nations Work Group members met in December of 2007 and shared information about their communities. It was a productive meeting and everyone walked away with a greater understanding of the challenges drug endangered tribal children face. The members saw the need to gather, share and apply the tribal information being produced and assess gaps of information. NADEC will continue to work with Indian Country and be a resource and collaborative partner.

If you are interested in being involved with any of the work groups, would like more information, or have suggestions that you’d like to share, please contact Susannah Carroll, NADEC Resource Center Manager, 303.413.3063 or scarroll@nationaldec.org.