News from the Node

On November 15th the Northeast Node Science Series welcomed Kay Jankowski, PhD and Erin Knight, PhD from the Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Research Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center for a presentation entitled, “The Effects of Caregiver Substance Use Disorder on the Well-being of Children and Youth.”

In their talk, Drs. Jankowski and Knight provided an overview of the scope of the problem, the effects of parental substance use on children and youth, and models for treating traumatized children that have high relevance and utility for children and youth coming from families with parental substance use. Children exposed to parental substance use suffer from high rates of abuse, neglect, traumatic loss and posttraumatic sequelae. Approximately 1 in 8 children (8.7 million) aged 17 or younger live with at least one parent with a past year substance use disorder (2009 to 2014). Moreover, an estimated 40-80% of families involved with child protection services due to child abuse or neglect involve substance abuse in the home. With high rates of substance use disorders, including opioid use disorders, and rising rates of death from drug overdose, services to meet the needs of the children and youth exposed to parental substance use are sorely lacking. You can learn more about Drs. Jankowski and Knight’s work by viewing their full presentation on the Northeast Node’s website.

We hope that you will join us for the next installment of our Science Series on January 24th, 2019 from 12:00-1:00 EST. Lisa Letourneau, MD, MPH, and Jeanne Ryer, MSc, EdD, will be presenting on using the ECHO Model to address the opioid epidemic in rural Northern New England. For more information, or to join the Science Series mailing list, please email Bethany McLeman.