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Director's Message
November 12, 2004
To: DHS Employees
From: Gary Weeks, Director
A life turned around
A mother in her thirties, with a history of methamphetamine and heroin abuse, ends up involved with criminal activity, arrests, and jail time. But, in this case, the story doesn't end there.
Thanks to intervention and help from a broad array of state and local human services -- including child welfare, self-sufficiency, vocational rehabilitation, and alcohol and drug abuse programs -- Victoria has a job, is back with her children and actively involved in their school activities, and has been drug-free for almost three years.
These are the kinds of successes we should be celebrating here at the Oregon Department of Human Services. And despite budget reductions and other restrictions facing us in getting our work done, we are helping people like Victoria every day.
The impact of alcohol and drug abuse
Alcohol and drug abuse has been and continues to be the top issue that knits our agency together and impacts the largest numbers of clients across cluster lines.
Consider the following facts I recently shared with the Oregon Partnership Alcohol and Drug Conference this month:
- Parental drug and alcohol abuse is the number one reason that children are removed from their homes. About 40 percent of the families involved with child protective services have had a substance abuse history.
- About 70 percent of our remaining welfare cases have had someone with an addiction problem.
- More than half of the people with behavioral health issues also have had a co-occurring drug or alcohol disorder.
- About 80 percent of those incarcerated have had alcohol or other drug addiction problems.
All of us who work with clients in this agency are well aware of these statistics. And we also know that funding for drug and alcohol prevention and treatment programs at the state and local levels has been severely cut in the past few years.
But that doesn't mean we should give up hope or be discouraged that we can't make difference. Every life that we help turn around is a victory.
Integrating our activities
While we've made great strides in integrating services, we do need to continue to breakdown the "silo thinking" that limits our capacity to creatively work on issues like this one -- which crosses a large part of our agency and involves all of us working in partnership.
We need to continue to find ways for our systems to work better together -- be it in child welfare, mental health, and public health or the courts and juvenile and adult corrections. We can accomplish more as a team than we ever can as individual systems.
That was the key for the client I told you about, whose life has turned around. She says she learned new skills in each treatment center and program she was involved with -- and it took a variety of collective supports for her to "forgive herself" and begin taking charge of her life.
Now instead of counting down her days in jail, Victoria's goals are becoming a case manager, owning her own home, and raising happy, healthy children.
Food for thought
"If you can dream it, you can do it."
Walt Disney
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This message is intended for all Department employees. Please read it electronically, if possible. Managers and supervisors are asked to share the message each week with employees who do not have email access.
If you have a disability and need a document on this Web site to be provided to you in another format, please send an email to dhs.forms@state.or.us or call (503) 945-7021, fax (503) 373-7690 or TTY (503) 947-5080. If you know of others who need this accommodation, please let them know it is available.
Oregon Department of Human Services
Director's Office
500 Summer St. NE E15, Salem, OR 97301-1097
Phone: (503) 945-5944
Fax: (503) 378-2897
TTY: (503) 947-6214
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