The Assistant Jasper County Attorney who founded Jasper County’s Open Arms Foundation and a couple of other professionals from Jasper County were invited to Las Vegas, Nevada earlier this month to participate in a national training initiative with the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children. Nicholas Pietrack, who heads up Open Arms of Jasper County, says the national non-profit’s three-day conference brought together law enforcement, prosecutors, health care providers and child welfare workers to talk about issues facing drug-endangered children across the nation.
“In Jasper County in 2022-2023, when we started, 89% of our child abuse assessments were drug related. The latest stat from the National Alliance for Drug and Endangered Children was that one in four children deal with drug endangered environments in their households. It’s a really important issue that Open Arms, the Jasper County Attorney’s Office, and the county as a whole take seriously.”
Pietrack and some of the others who attended this conference were also interviewed for training videos that will be used by the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, with the goal of helping professionals across the nation better recognize and respond to the needs of vulnerable children and families. The local Open Arms Founder talks more about this issue and his trip to Las Vegas on today’s Let’s Talk Newton.
