极速赛车168最新开奖号码 Substance misuse Archives - Community Care

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 How social workers can work with domestic abuse, substance use and mental ill health

katesnowdon — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 10:00:38 +0000

Domestic abuse, substance use and mental ill health are complex safeguarding issues, all of which are reported to have been exacerbated by the pandemic. To support the social workers helping families and vulnerable groups to manage these problems, and more, Community Care is making a number of specialist subscription resources freely available to all practitioners.

As of today, all social workers have access to an expert-written guide on working with domestic abuse, substance use and mental ill health. Written by researcher and trainer Jennifer Holly, for Inform Children and Inform Adults, the guide is available as a free, downloadable PDF.

The guide briefly explores the prevalence of co-existing domestic abuse, substance use and mental ill health, and the impact of multiple parental difficulties, before providing a list of indicators that a child is living with these three issues It contains questions to ask that may help you identify problems, examples of conversations, case studies and practice tips.

Click here to download the guide to working with domestic abuse, substance use and mental ill health.

What’s in the guide?

The guide is written by Jennifer Holly, who is a researcher and trainer, who has worked in the domestic and sexual violence sector, both in the UK and abroad, for more than 15 years. Since 2010 she has led on Against Violence and Abuse (AVA)’s work to develop improved responses to survivors and perpetrators of domestic abuse who are also affected by substance use and mental ill health problems. The guide includes:

An understanding of why domestic abuse often co-exists with parental mental health problems and substance use.
The impact that living with multiple parental difficulties has on children’s and young people’s physical health, emotional and psychological wellbeing, cognitive abilities, behaviour, and educational and social development.
How to comprehensively risk assess parents.

The guide considers key evidence, policy, guidance and law to inform managers on the identification, consequences and ways of working with domestic abuse, substance use and mental ill health.

Click here to download the guide on domestic abuse, substance use and mental ill health.

More from Community Care Inform

Community Care Inform Children and Community Care Inform Adults provide online resources for subscribing social workers and social care professionals. If you have a licence through your employer or institution, you might also find the links below particularly useful at this time.

Self-care and Covid-19: podcast and transcript

Use of self and emotional intelligence: quick guide for practice educators

Managing fear in social work

Fear and social work: podcast and transcript

Loneliness and isolation during the pandemic: podcast and transcript

Not sure if you have a licence?

A large number of local authorities and universities work with us so do ask your manager, principal social worker or learning and development team if you have access, or contact our helpdesk by email or phone (0203 915 9444). You can also enquire about new subscriptions.

You can read extracts from other Community Care Inform resources here.

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 ‘Over-optimistic’ professionals missed chances to intervene in family where toddler overdosed

Alex Turner — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 09:19:43 +0000

Inconsistent multi-agency working, “reactive” practice and over-optimism meant social workers and other professionals missed opportunities to intervene in a family where a toddler overdosed on methadone, a serious case review has found.

Two-year-old Frankie Hedgecock died in June 2015 after drinking a cup of methadone left on the floor by her mother Lucy King, who had fallen asleep. King was convicted of manslaughter through gross negligence in April 2017.

The serious case review, published by Kent Safeguarding Children Board, said no single agency or professional – all of whom “wanted the best” for the family – could have predicted Frankie’s death.

But it found there was a collective lack of insight into the lives of Frankie and her four siblings. This was exacerbated by an excessive focus on King and her partner, both drug users, and the absence of a chronology of events that might have enabled better analysis of their situation.

The review recommended all agencies use chronologies and called on Kent children’s services to provide the safeguarding board with reports on multi-agency participation in child protection conferences twice a year.

Missed appointments

Kent County Council children’s services had been sporadically involved with King since the late 1990s. Some referrals related to health professionals’ concern that her methadone use while pregnant could affect the welfare of her unborn children. Other referrals followed King’s failure to bring her children to check-ups and other medical appointments.

Members of the public also contacted children’s services on a number of occasions concerned for the wellbeing of King’s children. In 2010, one caller stated that the children “do not see the light of day”. Ambulance staff who attended the family’s home a few months later described it as run-down and cold, with no furniture, carpets or wallpaper.

However, social workers visiting the family home generally found that King and her partner were doing their best and that the children were happy and loved.

“Mother and father are conscientious parents and they are moving forward in providing a better home environment for their children,” said a January 2011 initial assessment completed in response to the ambulance staff’s concerns. “The walls had been painted, new furniture had been bought and much of the groundwork had been prepared for laying of new carpets, for wallpaper to be bought and new bedding.”

Serious assault

A number of incidents were reported during 2012. In March, police were called after being told three of King’s children had been left in a car crying and screaming, while in August they were told that a child had been screaming “in distress” from the house.

That same month police were called to a domestic abuse incident between King and her partner in a supermarket car park and a neighbour told officers that the children were often left on their own.

Referrals were made to children’s services but the case was closed in late August, after consultation with health visitors and a drug support agency, because a ‘Team Around the Family’ was already in place.

In late 2012, King’s partner was arrested for a serious assault, for which he was later sentenced to nine years in prison. Shortly after this, King disclosed that she was pregnant with Frankie and a child in need referral was made.

However, no further intervention from children’s services was deemed necessary. A social worker noted that King’s children were attending school and seeing their father regularly (despite him being bailed elsewhere), that grandparents were apparently offering support and that the Team Around the Family would monitor the situation.

After being born in February 2013, Frankie spent 65 days in hospital withdrawing from methadone, but at her one-year developmental review she was seen to be doing well.

During autumn 2014, a council housing manager raised concerns about the safety of King’s young children after seeing them playing unattended. In May 2015, meanwhile, the Turning Point drug support agency noted King’s continued dependence on illicit methadone on top of her prescription and that she had missed repeated medical review. Frankie died a few weeks later.

Mixed picture

The serious case review noted that a “high number” of professionals had been involved with the family and that there had been a number of positive observations. However, it set these in context of the series of reports made by anonymous callers and other professionals, and noted the “inconsistency” that King’s children must have experienced due to their parents’ lifestyles.

“Although the children were seen on a number of occasions and by a number of professionals, there was no documentary evidence of views from the children in seeking what their life was like,” the review said. “Apart from one assessment by a social worker, there was no other evidence that any of the children were seen alone and directly asked, ‘What was their life like?'”

The review said that professionals appeared to have focused too much on the parents’ needs rather than the needs of their children. It added that no agency had drawn together a chronology that might have enabled a “critical analysis” to be made. There were “numerous occasions” when neglect could have been considered, it concluded.

The review also found that multi-agency working had become disrupted, with agencies simply reacting to isolated incidents, in part because of the family’s “chaotic and transient” lifestyle. Opportunities for agencies to come together and agree a long-term plan were missed, the review said, and no systematic safeguarding risk assessment appeared to have been carried out.

“Overall, there was evidence within social care services and across the health services, of an absence of safeguarding supervision and case management oversight,” the review said.

Disguised compliance

In hindsight, the review said, professionals had recognised their over-optimism and over-dependence on the Team Around the Family, and that they had been blindsided by disguised compliance by the family.

Among a series of recommendations, it stipulated that all agencies make use of chronologies and ensure children’s views are sought, and that children’s services report regularly on multi-agency participation in child protection conferences.

The review noted that Kent council had introduced the Signs of Safety system, which should act to safeguard against the failings identified occurring in future.

Gill Rigg, the independent chair of Kent Safeguarding Children Board, said: “As a result of their contributions to the serious case review, the relevant partners drew up individual recommendations and action plans for improving the way they work to protect children better in the future.”

She added that the safeguarding board had accepted all the recommendations made in the report. “This is crucial as part of helping improve the safety and wellbeing of Kent children,” she said. “These have been implemented and lessons learned.”

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 “There’s no way my granddaughter is going to know me as that ‘old alkie'”

xmlrpcuser — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 09:54:02 +0000

By Dan Mushens

Loraine Radcliffe has been living with a diagnosis of alcohol-related brain damage (ARBD) for nearly a decade. “My bad times were really bad,” she recalls, “I have vague memories of the day I now refer to as ‘day one’, the day I was at my lowest, but also the day I began to repair my mind, body and soul.”

Although Loraine had always liked a drink, it was when her marriage ended in divorce and her two children left home that things really began to spiral out of control. “I didn’t have a reason to hide it anymore. It must have been blatantly obvious to those around me, but I’d always deny I’d been drinking and would say I was fine even though I could barely stand up, I was in complete denial.”

With her family gone, Loraine found herself alone, addicted to alcohol and suffering from depression. “A bottle of vodka a day would be the usual. I had so much to deal with that I was overwhelmed; the breakdown of a dysfunctional marriage, the onset of ARBD and two kids that didn’t want to know me. All this and I was still attempting to hold down a succession of jobs to pay the bills.

“It wasn’t until ‘day one’ that things began to change. On one of the few occasions my son came over to see me, he found a drunken mother in a heap on the kitchen floor, barely conscious and bereft of self-respect.”

Rehabilitation

Her son called an ambulance and after a short while in the local hospital, Loraine was admitted to Castle Craig rehab clinic in the Scottish borders. She spent the best part of a year there and found the intensive talking therapies a big shock, but she embraced the opportunity that had been presented to her and completed the course.

“It was around this time that I discovered I was going to be a grandmother. My daughter, who I rarely saw, was pregnant and I knew that unless I at least attempted to turn my life around, my grandchild would only know me as ‘that old alkie’.”

After her stay in Castle Craig, Loraine returned to the familiarity of Glasgow. She had had to give up the tenancy on her flat when she was in hospital, so moved into supported accommodation for about six months. “I was just glad to be back in Glasgow,” she says. “I managed to remain abstinent for the majority of the time and found AA meetings to be a good source of peer support. I had my own wee room but couldn’t go out into the community without being accompanied by staff.

“By this time, my granddaughter had been born and I was lucky enough to have met her on the one or two occasions that my daughter visited.

She was just amazing and she gave me the extra push to carry on with my recovery, it’s as if she was an important piece of the jigsaw.

I don’t think my recovery would be as successful as it has been, had she not come along and saved me.”

After completing all the group work courses it was time to move on again. Loraine was offered the chance to move into a service with fewer restrictions, meaning she could come and go without staff.

She moved into Scottish mental health charity Penumbra’s ARBD supported accommodation with a sense of renewed optimism and energy. “The staff gave me my own space and didn’t pressurise me to take part in activities or group discussions, there was a genuine focus on my own rehabilitation, to re-learn the life skills that I’d forgotten or that my memory and anxiety wouldn’t allow me to tackle. My chronic back pain was also a source of depression.”

Loraine is now in a better place

With only a single relapse during her stay here, Loraine’s next and hopefully final move came in January 2015. Loraine was again supported by Penumbra when she relocated into her own tenancy, this time by its ARBD supported living service.

“I love my wee flat,” she says. “I don’t need a castle or a palace, I just need a place to call my own, a place where I feel safe.

“The support I received in my home was a different kind of support. It wasn’t intrusive and I didn’t feel as if I was being told what to do, those things are important to me, it’s as if the support was tailored to my personality and not to my medical diagnosis.”

Loraine admits that keeping on top of her finances and bills was a real problem when she first moved into her flat and it caused her considerable anxiety. Therefore, as well as supporting her with abstaining from alcohol, this was an area that her care team prioritised.

“I was supported to go through my finances with a fine toothcomb to try and maximise my income. We found some discrepancies with my disability living allowance and eventually I received a backdated payment of nearly £1,000.”

Supporting others

She was also encouraged to contact the pension tracing service. After several months of form filling and phone calls, Loraine was delighted to receive a lump sum of £1,000 pounds from a pension she’d paid into for just a few months 20 years earlier.

“I was supported with things that I’d never even think about, it wasn’t all just about Loraine the alcoholic!”

There are also things Loraine has achieved without support; she regularly attends AA meetings and openly discusses her experiences of alcoholism and ARBD. She enjoys trying to support others who are going through what she once did.

To her delight, she has also regained contact with her son and daughter. “Instead of just the odd visit every now and again, I’m in weekly, sometimes daily, contact with my kids and I see my granddaughter most weeks.”

Safety net

When Loraine’s care plan was reviewed in early 2016, her recovery was said to have reached such a stage that support from the Penumbra ARBD supported living service could come to an end.

Loraine didn’t agree, but acknowledges that she was simply scared of supporting herself without a safety net. “When the social worker told me my support would be coming to an end, I felt scared, just the thought of it made me feel nauseous. Now, I believe that it was actually the final piece of my recovery jigsaw.

“I’m in a better place today than I was five years ago. ‘With my family around me and my granddaughter in my life, I’m a better person. There’s no way she’s going to know her granny as ‘the old alkie’.”

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 ‘Addiction deceives the best of us – and doggedly tests my recovery’

xmlrpcuser — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 08:28:32 +0000

By Jenny Molloy

Addiction is in my blood; I feel it day in, day out. There’s not a week – it started as not an hour, then a day, now a week – that my recovery is not tested. Why wouldn’t it be? Aged 12, I found the then love of my life in mind-altering substances. My parents used the same coping strategy, my grandfathers too. Feelings, what feelings? Self-medicate and all will be fine. It’s too easy to justify continuing your addiction with tales of woe – self-pity is as much of a killer as the addiction itself.

There’s lots of debate around whether addiction is a genetic disease or not. Equally the debate centres around whether it is a disease at all or just a moral failure of the individual.

I don’t actually care what the medical or social model of addiction is, I just know I’m an addict.

An addict who, I’m proud to say, is seven years clean on 9^th May.

I can honestly say that my perception of addiction was very much attached to the pictures in my mind of my parents, class A drug users and street drinkers. Addiction led you to prison, homelessness and the loss of your dignity and children, right? While this is the case for many, let’s not kid ourselves – addiction is far more cunning than that.

I believed I was a success

My children were fed, clean, protected and behaved well. I had moved up the food chain to a senior manager post. My home was clean and well furnished. So what if I believed I was an awful mum, a terrible woman who had these awful secrets, leading to painful thoughts and flashbacks? So what if I believed I was worthless? No one need know – alcohol made it all seem, well, rosier.

Of course, I steered away from the dodgy drinks; alcoholics don’t drink nice wine and champagne, do they? Deceit about how much I was drinking disguised itself in justification.

If alcohol was what I needed to shut up my head and heart, then alcohol it was.

I started to go missing on nights out. My husband would be desperately phoning round to try and locate me – but often the police would find me first. I put it down to drinking while tired, stressed or just too much that day. It was normal behaviour while drinking – I had witnessed my parents doing it since I could remember. Didn’t everyone go missing when they were drunk?

The day I accessed services, I wanted a plan on how to drink like a normal person, you know the person who has one drink. My brain doesn’t connect with that. I want to get that, but I don’t. I wanted to be able to hold the cup of tea the assessment worker gave me, but my damn hands wouldn’t work properly. Not because of the drink you see, never because of the drink. I must just be having a bad day. You need treatment, she says. I refer clients to the detox, I know the staff and bosses, I’m not going there! Shame overwhelmed me like a tsunami. I ran to the sink and puked. The third time that morning. Morning sickness was not because of the drink, no, I just had a tummy bug.

My HR director gave me 12 months’ paid leave, promised to keep my secret about why I was absent, and off to treatment I went.

Childhood trauma

I learned in treatment that I had not dealt with the trauma of my childhood. My idea of life and my identity was skewed. I believed that I already knew what a bad and thoroughly disgusting person I was, just that I hadn’t learned to accept that. I wanted to learn how to not feel a fraud at work, at home or at my children’s parents’ evenings. You know, like, I know I shouldn’t be here, I’m damaged goods, you just don’t know it because I’m really good at hiding it. Or at least to be able to welcome my fraudulent self to my life and embrace my fakery.

Instead, painfully, I learned that I was a good person, had received a seriously messed up childhood from equally seriously messed up parents, and, most importantly, I was now a strong woman who wanted a life free from her past. Relapse is always an option, unless you choose otherwise, and I wanted anything but addiction.

Professionals deceived

The final case I supervised before going into treatment was at a child protection conference with mum and stepdad pleading their innocence about the drugs raid on their house. I could smell the crack coming out of their pores, but still the professionals believed their protests that they were clean. “The hair strand test must have been from when I last used, you know about that time. We are clean, why don’t you believe us?”

My caseworker was trying to get them rehoused. The headmaster had got the children breakfast and after-school club for free. The social workers wanted to give them another chance because they could see that they were engaged (they turned up, didn’t they?).

When I returned after my treatment, the mum was in prison, the kids were staying with the paternal grandparents, and the stepdad had been clean for 60 days, was on a day programme, at serious danger of losing his leg through open abscesses. He had ceased all contact with his now ex-partner who was still actively using. I asked him – when was the last time you really used before that meeting? In the car around the corner, he said.

I will always keep in my back pocket that addiction deceives the best of us.

Jenny Molloy is a care leaver and author of ‘Hackney Child’ and ‘Neglected’

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 Lack of reflective supervision hindered action in baby death case

Tristan Donovan — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 12:27:38 +0000

A lack of reflective supervision and information sharing between adult services and children’s social care has been highlighted as problems in a case where a baby died.

A serious case review carried out for an unidentified local safeguarding children board examined the events surrounding the death of Baby V, who was found dead aged six weeks old in November 2014.

Baby V belonged to a family marked by chronic drinking, domestic violence and mental health problems that had brought his parents and the father of his two teenage siblings into regular contact with multiple services across a number of neighbouring local authority areas.

The three adults in Baby V’s life repeatedly mislead services as to the extent of their drinking and their contact with each other.

On November 27, 2014, the mother took Baby V to his father’s home. What happened during the next 48 hours is unclear but on November 29 an ambulance was called to the father’s address and Baby V was found to have been dead for sometime.

The cause of Baby V’s death was “unascertained” but the parents had been drinking heavily and were later convicted of child neglect.

Reflective supervision crucial

The serious case review found services too often believed what the three adults involved told them and concentrated on their needs rather than those of the three children.

It said that a lack of good reflective supervision was a factor in services’ willingness to believe the adults despite the build up of evidence contradicting their claims.

“One of the most persistent and problematic tendencies in human cognition is a reluctance to revise an initial assessment of a situation,” said the review.

“Reflective supervision is crucial when addressing cognitive issues. These types of erroneous thinking and decision making are unlikely to be recognised by the individuals themselves.”

Think family

The review noted that adult services held a more accurate picture of the family’s situation than children’s social care but did not share this information effectively.

“The needs of the adults in this family were overwhelming and their needs dominated contacts with agencies. The review has highlighted the need for adult services to ‘think family’,” said the review.

“This problem was exacerbated by the myriad of services accessed by the adults that crossed several other areas, hospital trusts and GP practices.”

Section 11 process

The review recommended that the local safeguarding children board uses a Section 11 process to require all agencies involved to report on the effectiveness of their supervision and management processes so that the work of frontline professionals is scrutinised and challenged.

The independent management review carried out by children’s social care following Baby V’s death also echoed the recommendation.

This review concluded that practitioners should have “effective supervision that allows them to reflect critically on factors that could impact their practice including workloads, personal biases and intuitive responses”.

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 Serious case review flags ‘toxic trio’ of risks to baby who suffered injuries

Tristan Donovan — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 00:02:40 +0000

Safeguarding cases involving the “toxic trio” of domestic abuse, mental ill-health and substance misuse require a multi-agency approach, a serious case review has found.

The serious case review by Bracknell Forest Local Safeguarding Children Board examined a case where a two-month-old baby known as Child C had its right leg broken in 2013.

It found that the various agencies involved with the family did not work together effectively leading to individual services making decisions without a full picture of the family’s history and situation.

The review said children’s social care over-relied on information from health professionals, who felt there were no concerns, despite being aware of the wider family context.

Equally when children’s social care reviewed the family’s child in need plan in May 2012 and decided to close the case, it made the decision without input from health professionals who held relevant information.

Lack of action

“Overwhelmingly, this case makes clear that over-reliance on the opinion of health organisations or on children’s social care alone is to be avoided and all agencies must bring their own expertise to these difficult decisions,” concluded the report.

While the review found many examples of “highly effective inter-agency working” even when information was shared the response of the agencies involved was sometimes lacking.

This was the case when, a few days before Child C was taken to hospital in October 2013, the mother called 999 after an alleged incident where the baby’s father pulled out her hair and smacked her head against the floor while Child C’s sibling, a toddler, attempted to separate them.

“Police, children’s social care and health visitors were aware of the incident, yet there is no evidence that the emotional impact of C’s sibling witnessing domestic abuse was considered,” the review said, adding that there was also no evidence that any agency involved was minded to challenge that lack of action.

The review said it would have been useful if the police told children’s social care about incidents they had not classed as domestic abuse alongside other softer information they held about the family.

However, it added, social care could have requested that information as part of the assessment process or held multi-agency discussions that would have allowed that information to have been shared.

‘Toxic trio’

“Cases involving the toxic trio of domestic abuse, mental health issues and substance misuse cannot be worked effectively by any single agency,” the review emphasised.

The review also noted ambiguity in Working Together to Safeguard Children 2010 led to a family support worker supervised by an assistant team manager being appointed to handle the core assessment because the guidance says an experienced social worker must “lead” rather than undertake this work.

In response to this Bracknell Forest children’s social care has proposed to risk assess cases when deciding who carries out core assessments.

Alex Walters, the independent chair of the safeguarding board, said good progress has been made by agencies to address the problems raised in the review, which was delayed due to criminal proceedings.

These changes included training social workers on the importance of family history, holding regular case file audits and creating regular opportunities for cases to be discussed with adult social care.

Hear more on this topic by attending Community Care Live London 2016, click here to view the programme

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 Safeguarding bosses warned man died after ‘agency blindness’ left him without help

Tristan Donovan — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 11:37:51 +0000

A lack of coordination between social care and health agencies allowed the death of an alcoholic man with complex care needs to go unnoticed for weeks.

The body of Colin Williams was found in a decomposed state on 9 April 2013 and the coroner’s Regulation 28 report warned that there is risk of a similar deaths occurring unless interagency working between local agencies in Cornwall improves.

The report was sent to Cornwall council and the local adult safeguarding board.

Williams, who lived in St. Austell, was known to several agencies including adult social care, his GP, police, social housing and the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust.

In her report coroner Dr. Emma Carlyon said: “Those at the inquest gave evidence that due to the large number of potential agencies involved in his care, his age (below 65), and the fact he had variable mental capacity due to his chronic alcoholism (no mental health diagnosis) it made it difficult for Mr Williams to know which agency provided what service and whether they were free or not.

“This led to agency “blindness” preventing him from accessing help/funding particularly at a time of crisis (especially when he lacked capacity due to alcoholism).”

‘Significant changes’

She said health and social care agencies must review their structure and interagency work in relation to clients with multiple care needs, in particular for adults with drug or alcohol dependency, to create a more joined-up approach and possibly introduce a key worker system.

A spokeswoman for Cornwall County Council said that since Williams’ death the authority has made significant changes to its assessment and care management service including developing locality teams.

“This change, which reflects similar changes in the health community, is designed to help build local intelligence and relationships, and support closer working between all providers of care, including the voluntary and community sector and housing organisations,” she said.

The council added that the local safeguarding adults board conducts regular reviews and audits of individual cases and also commissions an annual audit of cases by an independent reviewer who also examines the work of partner agencies and how different services work together.

The agencies involved are required to respond to the coroner’s report by Friday 11 March.

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 Family drug court delivers major savings by keeping families together, finds report

Tristan Donovan — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 16:34:07 +0000

The London Family Drug and Alcohol Court’s work in 2014/15 will save the public purse £729,000 over five years primarily because fewer children will enter care, says a new report.

The Better Courts report by the Centre for Justice Innovation, a charity seeking to improve the justice system, said the court’s interventions with drug or alcohol using parents would deliver an average saving to public services of £15,850 per family over five years.

Most of the savings would be due to fewer children being taken into care than would have been under standard proceedings. The NHS and criminal justice system would also save money because of reduced drug use by the parents.

The London Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) opened in 2008 and is run by specially trained judges who work with social workers, substance misuse workers and other professionals to create personalised support packages to help parents overcome drug or alcohol addictions and show they can care for their children.

Non-confrontational

Phil Bowen, director of the Centre for Justice Innovation, said: “It’s encouraging that problem-solving in the family courts not only delivers better justice, an important achievement in itself, but that it also offers a cost-effective way to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families.”

The Centre for Justice Innovation is a member of the partnership board that governs the FDAC National Unit, the government-funded body that supports the establishment of FDACs across England.

Sophie Kershaw, co-director of the FDAC National Unit, said: “The Family Drug and Alcohol Court is simply a better, cost effective way to do care proceedings. It’s non-confrontational style offers parents the best opportunity to change and gives more children their parents back.”

The report based its savings estimates on the findings of an earlier study by Brunel University, which examined the outcomes of the cases dealt with by the London court between 2008 to 2010.

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 MPs call for urgent action on foetal alcohol spectrum disorder

Gordon Carson — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 10:18:27 +0000

MPs have highlighted the prevalence of children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder in the adoption system and called for better training for social workers on the issue.

In a report published today, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) said it could be argued that adoption in the UK had become “predominantly a family finding service for children with FASD”.

The APPG highlighted a study in Peterborough which found that 75% of children referred for adoption medicals had a history of prenatal alcohol exposure, as did a third of children referred to a community clinic for looked-after health assessments. The report said anecdotal evidence suggested these figures might be similar across the country.

Social work training

The report called for social workers to receive “comprehensive training” on FASD. It said adoption and fostering preparation must identify the likelihood of adopting a child with FASD, and how parenting strategies can be adapted with this in mind.

The APPG highlighted that many older people were being granted special guardianship orders to look after grandchildren because their own children had an alcohol and/or drug misuse problem. If these guardians were not given the correct information, it said, there was a danger the children could “’bounce’ back into the care system”.

‘Million Dollar Babies’

The costs to children’s social care and the family courts arising from cases where children had FASD were also noted. “Unsurprisingly, the Canadians call children with FASD ‘the Million Dollar Babies’,” the report added.

The group challenged government, local authorities and adoption and fostering agencies to examine current policies to ensure that FASD was at the forefront of the adoption process.

Julia Brown, chief executive of The FASD Trust, which provides support for those affected by FASD, said too much social work practice was focused on “perceived need”.

“Attachment and trauma theory learnt over the last 20 years is still being applied, but the children now entering the adoption system are predominantly children who have significant need due to FASD,” Brown said.

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 “Immediately I knew this wasn’t a social call, I knew the game was up”

xmlrpcuser — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 12:09:29 +0000

By Dan Mushens

“Although I’ve got memory deficits, I remember that day as clear as if it were just yesterday,” says Jim Duffy about the day he lost his job because of his alcohol misuse.

“It was my day off work and I’d been pottering around the house and tidying the garden, when I saw two men approaching the driveway. It was my gaffer and his colleague and immediately I knew this wasn’t a social call, I knew the game was up.”

Drinking on the job

Jim had been a BT engineer for more than 20 years. He speaks candidly about life as a functioning alcoholic and how he used to hide bottles of cider underneath the passenger seat of his old work van. He recalls knowing the location of every lamppost-mounted bin in Glasgow, or at least the ones where deposits could be made from the comfort of the driver’s seat.

His boss approached and said, “Jim, this won’t take long mate, if we can have the keys to the van, we’ll be on our way and we can discuss things in more depth in the morning.” Jim was surprised that he’d been able to hide it for as long as he had. Wanting to discuss it there and then, he invited them into his house for a coffee where he was given the news that in the morning he was to be relieved of his duties.

Jim had been drinking on the job at every opportunity for years and believed he was doing so in a discreet and calculated manner. However, the truth was that his behaviour had become blatant and was common knowledge among his colleagues. Questions had been raised over the quality and speed of his work, and the company had now collected all the evidence it needed. Jim was soon to be unemployed, “an alcoholic without a function”, he recounts with a wry smile.

“I had been the company’s union representative for a long time but I literally couldn’t defend myself because of the sense of shame and embarrassment. I had no fight in me. I accepted that this moment in my life was the beginning of the end.

Deteriorating memory

“It was the thought of being unemployed that scared me,” he says. “I’d been working full time since I left school and I had a wife, a daughter, a big house and a hefty mortgage to pay each month. Reflecting on that life-defining day, one of many that I’ve subsequently faced, with a future of daytime TV, a remote in one hand and a bottle in the other, I desperately wanted to address my issues. One of the main concerns at this time was the fact I knew my memory had been deteriorating for some time but I didn’t want to discuss it because I was afraid of what it might mean.”

The morning after his van was taken away, Jim went to the office first thing, signed the relevant paperwork before heading straight to his doctor “to get the ball rolling”.

“The years that followed were hard and the effects of that day rippled through every aspect of my life,” says Jim. “My marriage ended in divorce, I lost the house and my relationship with my daughter deteriorated to the point that contact is still sporadic.”

Jim recalls a plethora of meetings, appointments and assessments spanning many months, which resulted in being told he was suffering the effects of alcohol-related brain damage (ARBD).

“I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about when I was told I had ARBD. It’s not a term that you hear much about, but when you hear the words ‘brain’ and ‘damage’ in the same sentence, you sit up and take notice.”

ARBD is an umbrella term for a range of symptoms which describe the physical injury to the brain due to heavy and prolonged alcohol use and the lack of proper nutrition. The two main disorders are Wernicke’s encephalopathy and Korsakoff’s syndrome. Characteristics include thiamine deficiency which is a B1 vitamin, poor concentration, confusion, poor balance and co-ordination as well as a lack of self-awareness and insight.

Jim has experienced them all at some point or another, but is keen to stress that one in four people will recover completely following a two-year period of total abstinence and a good nutritious diet including foods rich in thiamine.

World of chaos

The road to recovery is unique to each person. “I wanted to abstain but it wasn’t easy, even with the best of intentions, peer support at AA meetings and various medications, I relapsed time and time again. I was in and out of supported accommodation, detox and rehab services as well as hospital wards. I had spiralled into a world of chaos with no meaning or purpose and, at my lowest, I thought I was senile and past the point of redemption. I saw myself as a snowman whose future was slowly disappearing.”

Jim feels fortunate that Glasgow Council has a specialist ARBD unit which helped him through his journey. However, Glasgow is something of a rarity and the number of other Scottish local authorities with a designated ARBD team doesn’t reach double figures.

Today, Jim is no longer drinking alcohol and is living in a supported living service at a purpose-built ARBD complex in the east end of Glasgow. “It’s nice to have that reassurance, to know that support staff are around 24 hours a day should I ever need them,” he says.

“They’re not intrusive and they respect my privacy, but they prompt me at certain times of the day as my short-term memory can be poor. I’ve come to terms with it and have adapted accordingly.

“The way I see it, I’m fortunate. I’m now in my mid-50s and being able to stop drinking has led to opportunities being presented to me that otherwise wouldn’t have happened.”

Raise awareness

For example, since 2011 he has been a trustee on the board of the ARBD focus group which aims to raise awareness of the condition, influence public policy and improve services.

Jim speaks passionately about this role, he considers it his duty to promote this under-discussed condition as he knows how little information was available when he was diagnosed.

“It needn’t be a life sentence. I may need a little support now and again but my quality of life is what I decide it to be. If you break your arm, you adapt and get on with things; if you have toothache, you endure the pain until the tooth is treated. If you have ARBD, you need to focus on what you are able to do and adapt.”

Dan Mushens is a recovery practitioner working in Glasgow