Giving Compass' Take:

• The Hechinger Report explains how one treatment center in New England that helps adults are now counseling students who are impacted by the opioid crisis.

• We cannot forget the wide-ranging impact that substance abuse disorders can have on families. How can we make sure there are enough resources to help them?

• Read more about the opioid crisis and how it is affecting children and the foster care system.

When Maddy Nadeau was a toddler, she was often left alone until her sister got home from school.

“I remember mom was always locking herself in her room and she didn’t take care of me,” she said. “And so I was home a little child all by myself. My mom just wasn’t around at the time.”

Every day when her older sister Devon came home from elementary school, she made sure she and Maddy had something to eat.

Both parents struggle with heroin addiction and for several years the sisters moved in with different relatives and foster homes. Sarah Nadeau began fostering them, and last year she adopted them. Nadeau says both girls were anxious and depressed and had a hard time focusing in school — especially Maddy, who was exposed to drugs in utero.

“That makes it very difficult for her brain to settle down enough to do more than one task at a time,” Nadeau said. ”And now she’s removed from the only home she knows and she’s got confidence, and trust and abandonment issues.”

Read the full article about addiction counselors in schools by Rachel Gotbaum at The Hechinger Report.