Download Families

Vivienne Evans
September 2013
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The numbers
•Nearly 1.5 million adults will be significantly
affected by a relative’s drug use
•The cost of harms they experience as a result
amounts to about 1.8 billion per year
•The support they provide would cost the NHS
and local authorities about 750 million to
provide if it were not available
The numbers
 61,000 children in care in UK
 Up to 350,000 children affected by parental drug use
 Up to 1.3 million affected by parental alcohol use
 In 2007, local authorities spent £117 million dealing
with families where substance misuse is a problem
 Substance misuse linked to DV, mental health, poverty
......
THE POLICY DRIVERS
Families affected by addiction problems are
important for four significant and related reasons:
 Involvement of family members in the treatment of their relatives with
addiction problems can enhance positive outcomes
 Family members in these circumstances show symptoms of stress that
merit help in their own right
 Effective treatment of the parent can have positive benefits for the
child
 Better outcomes for children are achieved if they remain with their
families
Why support families?
 They provide practical, emotional and financial support to the
substance user, improving the likelihood of recovery
 Health and welfare of family members is improved if they are given
support
 Engaging families in a prison setting can reduce drug
supply and re-offending
 Isolation and stigma increases stress and its related
problems, placing added strain on statutory services
 Economic advantages
 Why not?????
Why families?
 Rebuilding family relationships is a key constituent of
recovery
 Families provide vital recovery capital
 Families are well placed to help map individualised
routes away from drug dependency
 Families need to recover too
Case studies
 The family has been torn apart in many ways, and my
grandchild has faced stigma at school
 We’ve had to deal with drug dealers demanding money and
had to pay back thousands of pounds in drug debts for our son…
 My daughters were scared of their drug using brother….the
emotional stress meant they missed school…
 We didn’t have any routines .. Everything revolved around the
drugs. There wasn’t much food about…. Bread and not much
else
Impact
 Social
 Financial
 Physical
 Psychological
 Criminality
 Stigma
 Personal and societal
What does family support mean?
 Policies and guidance :
 Drugs
 Families
 Children
 Systems:
 Strategic and operational partnerships
 Interventions and services
 Culture and language
Six key messages of the original Hidden Harm
inquiry
 Estimated 250,000/350,000 children of problem drug users
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in the UK
Parental drug use causes serious harm to children at every
age from conception to adulthood
Reducing the harm to children should become a main
objective of policy and practice
Effective treatment of the parent can have major benefits
for the child
By working together, services can take practical steps to
protect and improve the health and well-being of affected
children
The number of affected children is only likely to decrease
when the number of problem drug users decreases
Key challenges/opportunities
 How to deliver at a time of austerity
 Outcomes
 Localism
 Public Health
 Workforce
 Recovery
 Troubled families
.
Has anything changed?
www.adfam.org.uk