National media release: 03 November 2009
The children of drug addicts 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 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, speaking at the Think Families conference today, 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 clarifies 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 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.
Notes to editors
The NTA was set up by Government in 2001 to improve the availability, capacity and effectiveness of treatment for drug misuse in England.
The NDTMS is the key source of information for monitoring the numbers in treatment in England for the Government’s drug strategy.
These statistics are collated by the National Drug Evidence Centre at Manchester University from the NDTMS.
For further information and media interview requests please contact the NTA press office on 0207 972 1920/1802 or communications@nta-nhs.org.uk.
