From The New York Times:
More than a quarter of the nearly 27,000 children who were removed from their homes last year in Ohio were placed in the care of relatives or other adults deemed “kinship” — coaches, teachers or family friends. From 2010 to 2018, the number of Ohio children placed in kinship homes increased by nearly 140 percent, with a nearly 50 percent surge from 2016 to 2018 alone.
Here in Scioto County — a mix of faded industrial towns and horse farms on Ohio’s southern border with Kentucky and long known as ground zero in the state’s opioid epidemic — at least 69 people have fatally overdosed this year, according to the Ohio Department of Health. It is the highest toll in two decades.
Of the 394 children in the county removed from their homes last year, 47 percent were placed in kinship care.
