© 2024 Blue Ridge Public Radio
Blue Ridge Mountains banner background
Your source for information and inspiration in Western North Carolina.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Opioid Crisis Is Overloading The Foster Care System

The number of children in foster care in North Carolina is at a 10-year high.
Credit U.S. Navy
/
Wikimedia Commons
The number of children in foster care in North Carolina is at a 10-year high.

The opioid crisis continues to ravage the United States. Children of family members caught up in the epidemic face a particular set of pressures. One of the markers of that extra pressure is the steady rise in foster care rates around the country. In North Carolina the number of children in the foster care system has risen 28 percent in the past five years and is now at a 10-year high. 

Host Frank Stasio talks about the opioid epidemic with Matt Anderson, vice president of programs and business development for the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina and Julia Lurie, reporter with Mother Jones.

Host Frank Stasio talks about the numbers with Matt Anderson, vice president of programs and business development for the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, the largest private non-profit foster care provider in the state.

Stasio also speaks with Julia Lurie, reporter with Mother Jones, who has been speaking directly with families dealing with opioid addiction.

Copyright 2017 North Carolina Public Radio

Laura Pellicer is a producer with The State of Things (hyperlink), a show that explores North Carolina through conversation. Laura was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, a city she considers arrestingly beautiful, if not a little dysfunctional. She worked as a researcher for CBC Montreal and also contributed to their programming as an investigative journalist, social media reporter, and special projects planner. Her work has been nominated for two Canadian RTDNA Awards. Laura loves looking into how cities work, pursuing stories about indigenous rights, and finding fresh voices to share with listeners. Laura is enamored with her new home in North Carolina—notably the lush forests, and the waves where she plans on moonlighting as a mediocre surfer.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.