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drinkanddrugsnews
| July 2013
Family support |
Adfam conference
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
‘C
hildren don’t care about the substance – drugs and alcohol are all the
same,’ said Adfam chief executive Vivienne Evans, introducing the
day by highlighting the improved focus on the family since
Hidden
harm
. But, she emphasised, much more work was necessary to
ensure that families were getting the support they needed.
‘Alcohol is a drug – it’s a drug of dependence,’ said Ian Gilmore of the Alcohol
Health Alliance UK, highlighting the effects that changing drinking patterns in
Britain were having on families. A combination of new products appealing to
children and teenagers, low pricing at supermarkets and an ‘alcogenic’
environment had led to 10 to 15-year-olds being exposed to 10 per cent more
advertising than adults. ‘So long as we have alcohol 24/7, children are going to
think it’s normal to drink,’ he said. Alcohol killed more people under 60 than
drugs, tobacco, and unsafe sex. ‘When put in context of harm done to families,
there is public support for alcohol reforms,’ he said, adding that the harms of
passive smoking ‘paled in comparison’ to the harms of drinking.
Joy Barlow of STRADA gave delegates a snapshot of how services had become
more responsive. ‘Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have seen the people or
organisations here today,’ she said, adding that multi-agency work had improved in
recent years. Nonetheless, not enough emphasis had been placed on the effect of
stigma and parental recovery on children, who ‘deserved to be a part of recovery,
as they had been a part of the addiction’. Care professionals would need to be
mindful of the emotional impact on children as well as the physical, she said, noting
that children were aware when they ‘came second to a substance’.
Annette Dale-Perera of the Central and North West London NHS Foundation
Trust urged delegates to ‘work together more closely and more smartly.’ Trends in
adult drug use had changed significantly since
Hidden harm
, said Dale-Perera,
adding that the new generation of young adults and parents had generated new
issues. Lower engagement with drug services had gone hand in hand with high-
risk trends such as poly-substance use and an increase in stimulant drugs among
single parents to ‘keep them going’. The long-term effects of these trends were
still unknown, and the cuts to public spending and devolution to local authorities
would offer both challenges and opportunities in the future, she concluded.
‘Skilling up’ the workforce was the priority for Ruth Allen of the College of
With 2013 marking the ten-year anniversary of
Hidden harm
, social care
professionals gathered at the Adfam annual conference in London to reflect on the
progress so far and what the future might hold.
Kayleigh Hutchins
reports.
Photography by
Travis Hodges
FAMILY FOCUSED
Social Work, who identified by a show of hands that most delegates were
employed in social work, but only one or two had received drug training. ‘Social
workers should be equipped to recognise the effects of substance use on
children and the family,’ she said. The workforce needed to feel empowered to
challenge both stigma and the person affected – with the college there to
support and train them. Professionals needed to ‘make judgements without
judgmentalism’, said Allen, and to have a ‘whole systems approach’ to care.
Public Health England’s perspective was given by Lynn Bransby. ‘We see
recovery as being defined by individuals, and we see it as being ambitious,’ she
began. People were receiving a different service now, she said, and were being
shown they were capable of recovery. However, many with substance use issues
still feared ‘that talking about having children would lead to a negative
intervention.’ PHE's priorities involved early intervention and working with the
‘troubled families’ agenda, to make sure there was a working system at local
level to identify families needing help. ‘There are reasons for optimism in this
agenda, and it would be a damn shame if it went backwards,’ she said.
In the afternoon’s ‘practice minibites’, Hardey Barnett, senior practitioner at
the Family Drug and Alcohol Court, outlined its programme, which had been set
up to help families cope with court proceedings to decide the permanent
residency of children. Removing the adversarial element of the process, while
offering support to the family, the pilot paved the way for an outcome that was
best for the whole family, he said.
Sarah Ingram of Greenwich Children’s Services identified that parental
substance use was often ‘just a part of a bigger picture,’ and highlighted the
need for accurate and age-appropriate information and support for children who
were acting as carers for their parents. Professionals needed to develop a
shared ethos, she said, and improve inter-agency working.
Ryan Campbell, new chief executive of KCA, discussed the charity’s family
intervention programme, which also recognised that substance use issues rarely
existed in isolation. The programme was helping families to work through the
surrounding problems, encouraging parents to find practical solutions and building
trust with the workforce. ‘Parents with substance misuse issues aren’t bad – they
love their children just as much as any other parent, sometimes more so,’ he said.