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drinkanddrugsnews
| April 2012
Profile |
Vivienne Evans
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Family
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iv Evans has been chief executive of Adfam for a decade,
overseeing its transformation into a major umbrella
organisation with dynamic research, campaigning and policy
functions – ‘if you don’t influence policy then you can’t
influence practice,’ she says. Today’s economic and political
landscape means the organisation has never been more vital, with family
services – and many families – under increasingly intense pressure. Adfam
has just published two free guides to help steer organisations through the
financial and administrative changes – Surviving the transition: local structures
and networks is designed to help services navigate changes in commissioning
and accountability, while Surviving the transition: organisational health details
what’s necessary to stay ‘legal, healthy and robust’.
What’s her impression of the mood in the family support sector – how
are organisations faring? ‘It’s not easy for anybody,’ she says. ‘It’s partly
the cuts, but having said that there are some small local family groups that
have responded by making alliances – perhaps with a treatment agency or
with other groups – and we’re trying to help them to do that, to be flexible.’
Adfam was originally set up to support family members ‘regardless of
whether or not they had a user in treatment or whether or not they were
actually engaged with, or living with, that family member’, she points out. And
while that agenda still stands, treatment providers are increasingly adding
family support to their own provision. ‘There’s a fundamental philosophy about
family support,’ she says. ‘At our conference (see page 8) what we were trying
to do was raise that dilemma, because you can ask a group of people what
family support means and they’ll all have a different take.’
To some, it will be about parental substance misuse and getting the parents
into treatment, while for others it will be ‘recovery capital for the family
member’, she says, with some seeing very much as support in the family’s own
right. So while more treatment organisations may be providing family support,
they’re ‘ticking off the family members of people who are in treatment’, she
stresses. ‘And there are a hell of a lot more who suffer in silence.’
Family support has ostensibly been a central focus of government drug
policies since at least the 2008 strategy – has she seen real evidence of that on
the ground? ‘There is a lot more awareness of the need to support families,’ she
says. ‘Much more awareness, much more acceptance, but again, the challenge
for us is to really make it clear that there are different types of family support.
Because people lump it all together you can have difficulties gaining the evidence
of what works. And the other thing to say is that family support services are
being cut – services are being cut across the board, obviously – while the need
for them is growing. That’s the great dilemma of the current economic position.’
The ‘counter-argument’, she acknowledges, is that the government is
putting resources into things like the Department for Communities and
Local Government’s troubled families agenda. ‘But I’d go back to my point
about family support meaning different things and where we find a home for
‘Family support should be everybody’s business’