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October 2013 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 9
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Cover story |
Families
syndrome – the desire to see every pregnancy or birth
as a fresh start’, she stated. This was something
workers understandably used as a defence against
‘overwhelming information and feelings of
hopelessness’, she said. ‘It’s obviously important not
to be fatalistic, but it’s also important to recognise
what’s happened in the past – there are judgement
calls to be made. Sometimes women are dragging
along this rock and feeling that they’re never going to
be let off the hook, but we can’t ignore history either.’
There was a growing evidence base that short-
term, behavioural approaches were not likely to
succeed with families with long-standing, complex
problems, she told the conference. ‘One of the other
siblings in this case had a head injury at one day
old. But the mother told workers that she was “ready
to be a mother” this time.’
Preoccupation with eligibility criteria rather than ‘a
primary concern for the child or the family’ was also a
risk, she warned, and information sharing was often
woefully lacking. ‘It’s one thing for information to be
accumulated, but having it and knowing what to do
with it are very different things.’ Communication
problems were common, whether the result of
incompatible IT systems or ‘a lack of confidence’ in
challenging other agencies around their information.
‘Practitioners need to be encouraged to think critically
and systematically about the information they have.’
Being constantly faced with neglect could be
‘debilitating’, she acknowledged. ‘Professionals can
be overwhelmed by having too many problems to face
and too much to achieve. But the risk is that the
child becomes invisible.’ In the case of T, ‘nobody
ever really knew that child, apart from that foster
mother in those five days’.
Parental problem drug or alcohol use figured in a
quarter of child protection register cases, with the
children themselves describing ‘uncertainty and
chaos, disrupted education, fears of censure and
separation and having to become carers
themselves’, she said. ‘And children don’t open up
easily about these things – there’s a lot of loyalty, as
well as shame and fears of being taken into care.’
Drug use could not be tackled in isolation from
women’s other needs, she stated. ‘We need to be
women-centred and needs-led, with a motivational,
harm minimisation, solution-focused approach. And
there needs to be trust.’
*****
Although there was now much more awareness that
people did recover, knowledge around what enabled
that remained limited, particularly regarding women,
Brighton Oasis Project director Jo-Anne Welsh told
the conference. ‘Most policy documents are gender
neutral. In terms of recovery capital, having family
around is seen as important, but is that necessarily
the same for women? If you’ve got health family
relationships, yes, but the majority of our
client group are single parents, and there
are also considerations around domestic
violence and whether caring for children is
seen in terms of obligation or support. All
the talk about “social capital” and family
relationships needs to be a bit more
nuanced around what are healthy
relationships and what aren’t.’
The stigma associated with substance-
using mothers was immense, she stated.
‘Clients feel ashamed, and that’s a shame
that doesn’t go away. A man who’s had a
drug problem can often pass it off as a
bit of a wild past and move on. But it’s a
bit more difficult to move on from being
a woman who’s had her child taken
away – what “cultural capital” do you
have then?’ All of this underlined how
vital it was to continue thinking about
service provision in the context of
women, she stressed, as well as to
‘challenge and support’.
‘It’s easy for frontline workers to
feel powerless. But we need to
keep challenging ourselves and
the people responsible for
policy. It’s hard, when you’re
doing a full-time job, to
make the effort to study
the evidence and look at
new ideas. But I hope
people do keep thinking
about new
developments and what
they need to do
differently, rather than
just what to do with the
client in front of them.’
The DDN/Adfam
Families First
conference, for families
and all those who
support them, takes
place in Birmingham on
21 November. Details at
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
ildren first