The Application of a Social Justice Theory to the Well-being of Substance-Exposed Infants

In utero exposure to drugs and alcohol threatens the well-being of infants. Federal law has established child well-being as one of the three main goals of the child welfare system, and recent changes to federal law require state child welfare programs to assess the needs of substance-exposed infants and plan for their safe care. CPS workers are often the first point of contact these infants have with the public child welfare system; yet, CPS workers have no framework for assessing the well-being of substance-exposed infants. In this article, the author applies the Theory of Justice as Well-being to substance-exposed infants as a way to assess the deficits to well-being these infants experience. Furthermore, Justice as Well-being is applied to substance-exposed infants and their families to serve as a conceptual framework for an interprofessional approach to planning for the treatment and safe care needs of this highly vulnerable child welfare population.