October 2015 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 9
safeguarding
To find out more go to:
AS A SOCIAL
CARE AND
HEALTH CHARITY
,
CRI works with
individuals, families and communities across
England and Wales affected by drugs, alcohol,
crime, homelessness, domestic abuse, and
antisocial behaviour.
Working with this at-risk group of people, it
is imperative that certain safeguards are
observed. Service users who seek our help are
often in an extremely vulnerable position and
may need support with not only the physical
effects of substance abuse, but with the effects
it can have on their lifestyle, family and
professional lives. Our priority is to always help
service users create a safe environment, which
will ultimately help their recovery process.
Safeguarding particularly applies when the
service user is caring for children. As an
organisation, CRI has a shared responsibility to
ensure that the children of parents struggling
with alcohol or substance misuse are safe and
protected. While we can never completely
eliminate risk, we put our energy and resources
into reducing it as much as possible.
A key concern for these often vulnerable
children is to limit, as much as possible,
exposure to substances. At CRI, we treat
heroin-dependent service users with opiate
replacement medications which are by their
nature potentially dangerous drugs. Any service
user who is given methadone, for example, will
be provided with a safety-locked box that will
prevent children from directly accessing it. Staff
conduct home visits, starting from as close to
the initial distribution as possible. A vital aspect
of these home visits is to ask questions and not
make assumptions, as well as educating
parents on the risks posed to children around
medication. Frontline staff are trained to use
their expertise and professional initiative to
assess the home environment of a child.
We work with multiple organisations
across the social care sector, including local
authorities, police, and social services, to
provide a well-rounded and holistic care
system. Collaboration and communication is
key to giving parents the best possible
support, ensuring that separating a child
from its parents will only ever come as a last
resort. As a drug and alcohol rehabilitation
charity, we support parents with substance
issues but will always work with or refer cases
to other organisations, should their expertise
be better placed.
Our safeguarding approach at CRI is to do
everything we can to minimise risk. In an ideal
world we would reduce risk to zero, but as we
are often tragically reminded, in the real world
of recovery this is not possible. A fundamental
principle is working with our service users and
other professionals openly and collaboratively,
and not being afraid to engage with them on
risk and safeguarding issues. Welfare of their
children is not only paramount for us but for
the vast majority of parents in recovery.
Kevin Crowley is executive director of
quality, governance and innovation at CRI
Experts on safeguarding will be speaking at
a national conference in Birmingham on 10
November, presented by Adfam. Details and
booking at
On the safe side
We mustn’t be afraid to engage with
parents about sensitive safeguarding issues,
says
Kevin Crowley
‘In an ideal
world we
would reduce
risk to zero,
but as we are
often tragically
reminded, in
the real world
of recovery
this is not
possible.’
LAWS AGAINST SMOKING
have
irreversibly shifted attitudes. The same
drive is needed for alcohol
consumption. The police, magistrates
and judges must insist on rehab for
alcoholics as they do for drug addiction.
And finally, while the NHS must care for
those already addicted, it needs to get
tougher on those who won’t stop
drinking till they are blotto. Inform their
employers or the benefits office. Show
them there is no such thing as a free
bed. Shifting a culture is not
easy but it can be done.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown,
Independent on Sunday
, 6
September
THE [CHARITY] SECTOR
is crying
out for rationalisation through
merger. It’s been talked about
for years; but the holier-than-
thou approach many charities
take to their cause, combined
with their ad hoc back offices,
means that there’s little motivation to
develop in this way…We need a Big
Bang in the sector, with potential and
existing charities required to justify
why they are not joining others sharing
the same purpose.
Matthew Patten,
Telegraph
, 3 September
PEOPLE REFER TO OUR CULTURE
as
‘alcogenic’. It isn’t, it is alcophiliac.
Drink is not merely the socially
acceptable addiction, but the socially
approved fix. Alcohol is how our
society detaches itself from stress, be
it the angst of work or parenthood. It
is how it celebrates and mourns,
marks the holiday and the everyday.
Millions of people – like me – come
under the category ‘functional
alcoholic’, as if the ‘functional’
somehow negates the disease.
Hannah Betts,
Telegraph
, 14 September
THE DEBATE ON MINIMUM PRICING
for
alcohol will now switch from the
courts to the academic arena and the
researchers will be asked to provide
the proof of the policy the government
wants to implement. When a
government looks to academia to
provide evidence for its favoured policy
we should all be uncomfortable.
Universities love government funding
– they depend upon it. So the
temptation will be to accept the
government’s largesse and to deliver
the findings the government wants to
hear. Only in this case, the audience
will not be sympathetic Scottish
Government ministers, but sceptical
European legal experts.
Neil McKeganey,
Scotsman
, 7
September
A MOTHER WHO PAID £300
for a
dozen packets of cocaine as a birthday
present for her daughter’s 18th has
been spared jail. Nicola Austen, 37,
with six previous drugs convictions,
expected to be sent to prison and
turned up at Maidstone Crown Court
with an overnight bag. But the judge
gave her a suspended sentence and
community service because she is a
‘carer’ for her 14-year-old son and her
elderly grandmother. Run that by me
again. A woman who buys cocaine for
her teenage daughter is spared jail
because she is considered a suitable
person to look after a 14-year-old boy?
Am I missing something here?
Richard Littlejohn,
Mail
, 11 September
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