Reclaiming Safety for Children Whose Parents Use Substances

This resource was created by upEND Movement.

In this essay of upEND’s Reclaiming Safety series, Kassandra Frederique, Dinah Ortiz, and Mark challenge the family policing system’s assumptions that parental drug use automatically equals harm to a child—an assumption that collapses complexity into crisis and justifies surveillance and separation. Centering the lived realities of Dinah, a single mother parenting under the constant threat of child removal, and Mark, who navigated his father’s substance use amid financial instability and incarceration but was sustained by family and community care, the authors expose the gap between dominant narratives and families’ realities.