Substance Use During Pregnancy and Family Care Plans

The Substance Use During Pregnancy and Family Care Plans Knowledge Lab highlighted state policy and legislative activities related to the Model Substance Use During Pregnancy and Family Care Plans Act.

Background Discussion

Learn more from experts about establishing protocols to treat and protect pregnant individuals with a substance use disorder. We encourage you to view this prior to the live session.

Live Discussion

The live discussion took place on November 16, 2023 at 2:00 pm ET.

Supporting Materials

The Model Substance Use During Pregnancy and Family Care Plans Act (1) provides certain protections to pregnant or postpartum individuals with a substance use disorder so that such individuals are not penalized for receiving medical treatment, including medication(s) to treat the substance use disorder and (2) establishes that an infant born affected by parental substance use disorder or showing signs of withdrawal is not, by itself, grounds for submitting a report of child abuse or neglect. Click here, to read the full text of the Model Substance Use During Pregnancy and Family Care Plans Act.

Featured Experts

Medical Director/Senior Research Scientist, Friends Research Institute

Executive Director, Children and Family Futures

Senior Legislative Attorney, American Medical Association

Pediatrician, Karabots Pediatric Care Center

Faculty Lead for Community Core, Center for Health Equity

Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Mishka Terplan M.D., M.P.H., FACOG, DFASAM

Mishka Terplan is board certified in both obstetrics and gynecology and in addiction medicine. His primary clinical, research, public health, and advocacy interests lie along the intersections of reproductive and behavioral health. He is Medical Director at Friends Research Institute and adjunct faculty at the University of California, San Francisco where he is a Substance Use Warmline clinician. Dr. Terplan has active grant funding and has published extensively on health inequities, discrimination, and access to treatment and is internationally recognized as an expert in the care of pregnant and parenting people with substance use disorder. He has spoken at local high schools and before the United States Congress and has participated in federal and international expert panels primarily on issues related to gender, reproduction, and addiction.

Nancy K. Young, MSW, PhD

Dr. Nancy K. Young is the Executive Director of Children and Family Futures (CFF), a California-based research and policy institute whose mission is to improve safety, permanency, well-being and recovery outcomes for children, parents and families affected by trauma, substance use and mental disorders. CFF operates a number of evaluation and technical assistance programs. Since 2002, she has served as the Director of the federally-funded National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare and the Director of the Administration on Children and Families technical assistance program for the Regional Partnership Grants since 2007. In 2010, she began serving as the Director of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s technical assistance program for Family Drug Courts and the Statewide System Reform Program in 2014. She led the effort to create the foundation-funded Prevention and Family Recovery Program to implement evidence-based parenting and children’s intervention in family drug courts in 2013.

Dr. Young has been involved in numerous projects related to public policy analysis, strategic planning and program evaluation through her work with these programs and serving as a consultant to various states, counties, tribes, communities and foundations on behalf of the children, parents and families affected by substance use and mental disorders involved in the child welfare and judicial systems. Prior to founding Children and Family Futures in 1996, Dr. Young served as the research consultant to the Directorate of the State of California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs.

Dr. Young received her Ph.D. and Master of Social Work from the University of Southern California, School of Social Work and is a graduate of California State University, Fullerton. During her doctoral studies, she was the recipient of a pre-doctoral fellowship with the National Institute on Drug Abuse focusing on the public policy and research issues pertaining to children affected by parental substance use disorders. Dr. Young’s work and that of CFF has been recognized by the Federal Administration on Children and Families through the Outstanding Contractor of the Year Award in 2006 and by a resolution issued by the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2008. Dr. Young has also been recognized by the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors as a recipient of the Robert E. Anderson Service Award in 2008 and the Women’s Service Champion Award in 2014.  Dr. Young and her husband, Mr. Sidney Gardner, fostered and subsequently adopted two children who embody the policy and practice issues about which the work of Children and Family Futures is grounded.

Yuan He, MD, MPH, MSHP

Yuan He is an attending physician in the Division of General Pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the Child Health Policy Advisor for the Division of Maternal, Child, and Family Health at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

Dr. He's academic and policy interests include improving care for children and families impacted by addiction and child welfare involvement, neighborhood- and community-based interventions to reduce racial disproportionality in the child welfare system, and leveraging community engagement and cross- sector collaboration to advance health equity.

Daniel Blaney-Koen, JD

Daniel Blaney-Koen, JD, is a senior attorney with the American Medical Association Advocacy Resource Center (ARC). The ARC attorneys focus on working with state and specialty medical societies on state legislative, regulatory and policy advocacy. The ARC also provides technical assistance and policy perspective with a wide range of national organizations such as the National Governors Association, National Association of Attorneys General, National Association of Insurance Commissioners and others.

Daniel focuses on state legislation, regulation and policy concerning the nation’s drug overdose epidemic, with particular emphasis on overdose prevention and treatment; treatment for patients with pain; and broad harm reduction efforts. Daniel also works on issues to support physicians and other health care professionals seeking care for mental health and wellness concerns; and he covers other pharmaceutical issues and related insurance market reforms.

Daniel has held several roles at the AMA, including serving as a public information officer, policy analyst and speechwriter. Prior to joining the AMA, Daniel earned his Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Colorado State University, and his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Arizona. He earned his law degree from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Daniel, his wife, two young sons and daughter live in Chicago, Illinois.