They are the littlest victims of the opioid crisis: Tens of thousands of children forced into foster care because of a parent’s drug use. On Nov. 30, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released data from 2016 showing new foster care cases involving parents using drugs have hit the highest point in more than three decades of record-keeping, accounting for 92,000 children entering the system last year.
Less than two weeks after that data was released, the AP transmitted a package of stories focused on the crisis in two of the states with the biggest one-year increases: Indiana and Georgia.
The project, which wins this week’s Best of the States award, came about thanks to an analysis begun months earlier by Washington-based data journalist Meghan Hoyer. Hoyer worked with an analyst at the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect to access exclusive county-level data on foster care entries over the past 15 years, giving the AP a unique, comprehensive and localized look at the reasons children were entering the system, how long they stayed and where they were placed.
Shawnee Wilson plays with her son Kingston in her apartment in Indianapolis, Aug. 8, 2017.
AP Photo / Darron Cummings
Shawnee Wilson holds a photo of herself and her son Kingston, in Indianapolis, Aug. 8, 2017. Wilson has found herself on both sides of the system. Wilson’s parents used drugs, and she was 13 when child welfare officials removed her from her home. Now, at 26, she’s trying to beat heroin, having already lost custody of two children and given another up at birth.
AP Photo / Darron Cummings
A pile of paperwork sits on the desk of Judge Marilyn Moores as she works in her office in Indianapolis, Aug. 3, 2017. From 2006 through last year, the number of filings for children in need of services more than tripled to 4,649 in Marion County, driven largely by cases involving opioids.
AP Photo / Matt Sedensky
Judge Marilyn Moores works in her Indianapolis office, Sept. 18, 2017. Moores presided over a court that took 1,270 children from their parents in 2016, more than triple a decade earlier. Cases roll in to courtrooms that once were classrooms, converted to accommodate snowballing need.
AP Photo / Darron Cummings
Shawnee Wilson watches as her son Kingston plays in her apartment in Indianapolis, Aug. 8, 2017.
AP Photo / Darron Cummings
Shawnee Wilson poses for a photo in her apartment in Indianapolis, Aug. 8, 2017. Wilson knows how those who don’t struggle with addiction view her, and said it’s hard to explain what compels people to keep using even when it can cost them their children. When she’s been high, she said, “I can’t see the consequences, because all I want is to feel that drug. I want that numbness.”
AP Photo / Darron Cummings
Shawnee Wilson plays with her son Kingston in Indianapolis, Aug. 8, 2017.
AP Photo / Darron Cummings
That data allowed New York-based national writer Matt Sedensky to focus his story on Indiana, where parental drug use was increasingly cited as the reason for foster care removals. Sedensky convinced the chief juvenile court judge in Indianapolis to grant him access to courtrooms and case files normally shielded from public view. He spent several days shadowing her in her work and sitting in on the proceedings of other judges. In the hearings, he heard heart-wrenching accounts of opioids’ effect on users’ children, and approached those struggling with addiction to ask them to share their stories. He also worked to get a foster care caseworker to let him follow her as she visited families caring for children removed from their birth parents’ custody, and spent time with adoptive families, medical professionals and others touched by the influx due to opioid addiction.
Readers sent emails of thanks. Several wrote to say they were inspired to become foster parents.
The president of an Indiana foster care agency wrote with “deep thanks” for telling “the story of the silent faces of this crisis.” Readers sent emails saying “thanks for going in-depth” and “wire stories are often cut short without satisfying closure, but I loved this one.” Several wrote to say they were inspired to become foster parents.
A second story, by national writer David Crary, also based in New York, zoomed in on one mother who had lost her three daughters to foster care and her battle to overcome addiction and win them back through a drug court program that is increasingly becoming an option for parents faced with losing permanent custody of their kids. Using contacts developed through his ongoing coverage of child welfare, Crary was able to find several participants in the family drug court in north Georgia willing to share their stories of going through a rigorous multi-year substance abuse program.
Kim Silvers, left, hugs her daughter, Emily, while speaking during a graduation ceremony from the Appalachian Judicial Circuit family drug court program in Ellijay, Ga., April 11, 2017. "I went into this program and I was kid-less, jobless, broken, I didn't have anything," said Silvers. "It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But it is the most rewarding." Without it, she said, "I would be dead right now."
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
Kim Silvers, far left, goes out for dinner with daughters, from left: Kelsey, Allison and Emily, in Jasper, Ga., May 3, 2017. During a hearing on the state's threat to strip her permanently of her parental rights, "What little heart I had left broke," Silvers recalled. "From that point on I surrendered. I knew I wanted a better life, but I didn't know how to do it on my own."
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
Kim Silvers, left, hugs her daughter Allison in Jasper, Ga., May 3, 2017.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
Kim Silvers, right, and her daughter Emily look through family photos at their home in Jasper, Ga., May 3, 2017. As she embarked on her recovery program, Silvers was able to have supervised visits with her daughters. "I didn't miss a single visitation, but ... it took them a while to start trusting me," Silvers said. "I had made so many broken promises, told so many lies." Emily said the toughest part for her was being separated from her sisters. "I couldn't be a role model for them," she said.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
Kim Silvers, center, sits on the couch with her fiance David Million as her daughter Emily flips through a photo album at their home in Jasper, Ga., May 3, 2017. The girls were appreciative as their mother struggled to find adequate housing and employment, eventually landing a job with a local finance company. She and the girls did family therapy together. And Kim fell in love with a man she plans to marry.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
A message is posted above the front door as Kim Silvers goes out for dinner with her daughters, seen in the framed photo at left, at their home in Jasper, Ga., May 3, 2017. From girlhood, substance abuse cast a shadow on Silvers' life. Eventually prescription painkillers led to addiction.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
Kelsey Silvers, center, sits next to her sisters, Allison, left, and Emily, while waiting for their mother Kim to finish an interview at a park in Jasper, Ga., May 3, 2017. All three of Silvers' daughters were removed from her care as she battled her addiction to opioid painkillers. The oldest, Emily, was placed with relatives; the two youngest, Kelsey and Allison, were in foster homes for more than a year before Silvers was deemed fit to take them back.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
A message decorates a desk during a group meeting for the Appalachian Judicial Circuit accountability court program in Jasper, Ga., April 27, 2017. Over the course of a decade, 93 of its participants, less than half of the total that entered the program, have made it through to graduation after at least two years of judicial reviews, counseling, and a busy schedule of classes and therapy.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
Driver Kim Silvers, far right, sits in her car with daughters, Emily, foreground right; Kelsey, left; and Allison, rear, in Jasper, Ga., May 3, 2017. "It was so great to get her back," said Emily. "She got us a place to live. We'd go shopping together, do our nails. It took a while. But she's a mom now. I'm so proud of her."
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
David Million wipes a tear while listening to his fiancee Kim Silvers speak at during a graduation ceremony from the Appalachian Judicial Circuit family drug court program in Ellijay, Ga., April 11, 2017. One of the most dramatic increases of children being taken into foster care has been in Georgia, where the foster care population soared from about 7,600 in September 2013 to more than 13,300 this spring.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
Kim Silvers waves to acknowledge applause after speaking during a graduation ceremony from the Appalachian Judicial Circuit family drug court program in Ellijay, Ga., April 11, 2017.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
Family Treatment Court coordinator Lexxaus Stanley conducts a urine drug test during a group meeting in Jasper, Ga., April 27, 2017. Participants sign a toughly worded contract holding them to 32 commitments, and warning that violations will bring sanctions, Random drug tests are frequent, often five or six times a week.
AP PHOTO / DAVID GOLDMAN
In interviews and email exchanges over several months, mother of three Kim Silvers told wrenching details of her experience – including an interview at her joyous graduation ceremony after completing the program. Her eldest daughter, Emily, also spoke with AP – recounting what it was like to look after her younger sisters while her mom was debilitated by addiction.
David Goldman, Alex Sanz, Michael Conroy and Darron Cummings shot powerful photos and videos in Indiana and Georgia.
Managing Editor Brian Carovillano called the package “great and powerful work. From Meghan’s work sourcing and interpreting the data, to first-class reporting, storytelling and design by the whole team, this is another very strong entry in what has been an amazing run of AP enterprise.”
For providing moving insight into the plight of the youngest victims of the opioid crisis and the struggle of some families to break free, Hoyer, Sedensky and Crary share this week’s Best of the States prize.