Abandoned Infants Assistance Programs: Providing Innovative Responses on Behalf of Infants and Young Children

• NCJ Number: 165667
• Author(s): R P Barth; S Goldberg; J Pietrzak; A Price; T Parker
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 79 pages
• Grant Number(s): 90-CB-0036
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health and Human Services
• Sale Source: University of California, Berkeley
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC

Annotation

In response to the problem of abandoned infants due to complications of prenatal drug or HIV exposure, Congress enacted the Abandoned Infants Assistance (AIA) Act which defines abandoned infants as young children who are medically cleared for discharge from acute care hospital settings but who remain hospitalized due to a lack of appropriate out-of-hospital placement alternatives.

Abstract

The AIA Act authorizes the development of programs for infants and young children who are perinatally exposed to drugs or HIV, with the purposes of preventing abandonment; providing services that allow children and their families to remain together or to obtain appropriate foster care; recruiting, training, and retaining foster families and social service professionals to work with the population; and providing residential and respite care programs. Nearly 17,000 children, parents, and caregivers had contact with AIA programs during the first 4 years of AIA-funded services (1990-1994). A total of 5,352 infants, 5,621 biological mothers, and 2,881 siblings received services. Data on demographic and risk characteristics of biological mothers, infants, and children showed that 55 percent of biological mothers were black, more than one-third did not graduate from high school, more than one-third received Aid to Families with Dependent Children, half of pregnant AIA clients received either late or no prenatal care, biological mothers were more than 100 times more likely to be infected with HIV than women of childbearing age in the general population, and 11 percent of biological mothers were in early recovery from drug addiction. The following services were provided by AIA programs: case management, infant developmental screening and intervention, transportation assistance, basic resource assistance, parent education and support, mental health counseling, primary health care for women and children, and drug treatment. Strategies that constitute the core of innovative AIA program services are described, and several case studies are detailed. 34 references, 31 footnotes, 5 tables, and 12 figures