Chapter IX: Drug Endangered Children

II. Purpose

Responding to a suspected methamphetamine laboratory where children are involved requires a coordinated approach involving a multidisciplinary team to ensure everyone’s safety. Those who make methamphetamine often use methamphetamine, making them prone to violence. It is a powerful stimulant and produces physiological changes similar to the fight or flight response. Methamphetamine use can cause aggression, paranoia, depression and irritability, making the user’s behavior unpredictable. Methamphetamine users will often use weapons, explosives traps and surveillance equipment to protect and keep their operations secret.

The purpose of a multidisciplinary protocol is to provide local professionals with specific procedures for response to situations where there are drug endangered children as a result of secret methamphetamine laboratories or other drug production, trafficking and abuse. Memoranda of Agreement among these local multidisciplinary teams should also be developed to formalize roles and relationships at the local level.

Implementing a Drug Endangered Children (DEC) protocol that has been developed with local community requirements ensures that children who may be at risk for exposure to methamphetamine and methamphetamine laboratories receive protection, advocacy and support. This protocol also ensures that investigations provide the best opportunity for prosecution, while ensuring the safety of the local professionals (social workers, first responders, etc).

The following policy is designed to outline the process for county Departments of Social Services’ response to methamphetamine laboratories when children are involved, as well as provide guidance around developing the local multidisciplinary protocol. While the dangerous nature of responding to methamphetamine laboratories requires some very different responses by county Departments of Social Services that may seem contrary to the usual practices in child welfare, many of the usual policies and procedures that apply across child welfare will remain the same. In the following policy, special attention will focus on the unusual requirements in methamphetamine laboratory situations, while referring back to the existing policy when appropriate.