An increasing number of school districts across the country are starting not only to screen and treat at-risk kids for opioid addiction, but also access mental health counseling specifically for students whose families and communities are consumed by opioid abuse.
When Maddy Nadeau was a toddler, her mother wasn’t able to care for her. “I remember Mom was always locking herself in her room and she didn’t take care of me. My mom just wasn’t around at the time,” she says.
Every day, her older sister Devon came home from elementary school and made sure Maddy had something to eat.
“Devon would come home from school and fix them cold hot dogs or a bowl of cereal — very simple items that both of them could eat,” says Sarah Nadeau, who fostered the girls and later adopted them.
