Lafayette, Ind. There were about three agonizing weeks between the moment Jodie Hicks called child protective services on her son and the moment her granddaughter, Tessa, was taken out of his care.

She didnt want to make the call. What kind of mother calls the authorities on her son?

And worse, what if her call made Tessas situation more difficult? She knew her son would be furious when he found out about it. If authorities didnt find anything wrong at his home and he cut off contact, Tessa would be left to languish.

But she had seen what went on in her drug-using sons house and felt she had no other options. Her granddaughter, 4, was living in a filthy place where drug users came and went. She spent most of her time alone. She wasnt properly being cared for.

Hicks, who works for an organization providing services for homeless families, had always kept a watchful eye on Tessa, providing stability and support amid the childs chaotic home life. Those weeks during which, Hicks said, her son quickly figured out she had made the call and inundated her with angry messages she had no sense of what Tessa could be facing.

Theres this little being there, who has no control over her life and is being subjected to things she has no say over, Hicks said of her granddaughter. Anything can happen during that time.

Tessa now 7 and in the first grade is part of a generation of children who are having unprecedented contact with child welfare system as the opioid crisis continues to ravage the lives of the adults around them. In Indiana, where Tessa lives, the situation is especially dire.

Indianas foster care intake has more than doubled since 2001 , the sharpest increase in the nation. And while the nationwide rate of foster care entrances is not as high as it was at its peak in 2005, many states have seen drastic increases in recent years. Between 2012 and 2016, the number of kids in foster care around the country rose by 10 percent . More of these kids were being removed from their home due to parental drug use, according to data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System.

Physicians and counselors struggle with how to treat opioid-addicted pregnant women and their children, who are born into withdrawal. But for the kids who are already here, it is their grandparents, foster parents, teachers and school administrators who are on the front lines of this crisis.

The statistics for foster youth are bleak: Just 58 percent of youth involved with the foster care system have graduated from high school by age 19, compared to 87 percent of the general population . And while new requirements in the 2015 federal law governing education, the Every Student Succeeds Act , are designed to help this population, a Hechinger Report/HuffPost survey has found that many states are not living up to the laws promise.

Hicks wasnt about to allow Tessa into the care of strangers. So when Tessas parents tested positive for drugs and authorities took Tessa from their home, she went to live with Hicks a process known as kinship care.

Hicks, 54, and her husband, Kevin OBrien, Tessas 65-year-old step-grandfather, suddenly had a young child living under their roof.

Both had already raised children to adulthood. Now, instead of spending their nights with friends and going out to restaurants, they were shuttling their energetic granddaughter between dance lessons, voice lessons, therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and play dates.

The transition was somewhat jarring, isolating Hicks and OBrien from their friends and their former lives until they realized how many grandparents and great-grandparents were in the exact same position.

Thats the thing that shocked me more than anything, said OBrien, who is now retired after decades working at Eli Lilly and Company, the pharmaceutical company. The number of people around town raising grandkids or helping raise their great-grandkids, its crazy. In some ways, you probably hope youre the only one.