Moves to provide greater protection for children living with alcohol and drug dependent parents
The children of parents dependent on alcohol or other drugs will get special help if they are at risk when their parents are receiving treatment, under a new agreement between the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). New guidance issued to local social services makes clear that drug and alcohol treatment workers can help children’s services identify vulnerable children and families.
For the first time, local protocols will spell out the important role that drug workers can play in delivering a child protection plan:
Information about the risk of harm
Specialist advice on how the parents’ addictive behavior may affect the child’s safety
Securing improvements in the health and social functioning of parents
The guidance entitled Joint Guidance on Development of Local Protocols between Drug and Alcohol Treatment Services and Local Safeguarding and Family Services, published jointly by the NTA and DCSF, makes explicit to all staff working with families that referrals should be made to children’s services when a child is suspected of suffering significant harm.
This builds on the statutory duty of section 11 of the Children’s Act 2004 which ensures that protecting a child from harm has to be the paramount concern of all agencies.
Paul Hayes, NTA Chief Executive, launched the initiative at a ‘Think Families’ conference. He said: “Drug workers are not child protection or safeguarding experts, but their role in providing effective treatment to drug dependent individuals means identifying the influences on an adult’s drug use and what motivates them to stop. Questioning what’s happening within the families of drug users in treatment is critical for successful treatment outcomes, both for the individual as well as any family involved, and the new guidance for local protocols clarifi es when and how to involve children’s social care. Entering drug treatment is protective: it protects the individual, their children and wider society.”
Alongside the guidance, the NTA is releasing figures from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) which have been collected from the 83,000 adults newly presenting to treatment in 2008/09.
These show:
- 39,156 adults newly entering drug treatment in England in 2008/09 are parents who may not be living with children but may have access to them periodically
- 27,670 adults newly entering drug treatment in England in 2008/09 are living in a household with children
- 48,703 children are living in the same home as someone newly entering drug treatment in England in 2008/09
On this basis the NTA estimates that at least 120,000 children are living with the 207,000 adult drug users in England’s total treatment population.
Access to treatment will enable many drug-misusing parents to care for their children well. These protocols are designed to maximize the proportion of drug-using parents who can look after their children, while minimizing the risk of harm to the children of those who cannot, through early identification and prompt intervention.
The Think Families agenda is led by the DCSF and supported by the NTA in delivering safeguarding guidance to the drug treatment sector in England.