[Cansford says] Courts for addicted parents work. So why are they being stripped of support?

The Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) serves a vital purpose: to tackle parental substance dependency, and to keep children from entering the care system, where possible. Launched in January 2008, it offers an alternative, problem-solving approach to care proceedings for families where children are at risk due to parental drug and/or alcohol misuse.

In England, 10 specialist FDAC teams work across 15 courts in 23 local authority areas, and are currently under the umbrella of the FDAC National Unit.

As of September 2018, though, this will change: with insufficient support from local authorities and a lack of central government funding, the FDAC National Unit is set to close, unable to afford the £250,000 per year it needs for its survival.

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While the courts themselves will remain open, this central hub - which not only creates new FDACs but also promotes, trains, supports and quality assures the local units - will be closed. Funding was initially provided on the basis that the unit worked with private investors to convince local authorities to invest via a social impact bond (SIB) model - however, the required investor numbers have not been met.

The success of FDACs can’t be denied: a December 2016 report reveals that three in five mothers who kept their children were still clean five years after FDAC proceedings, compared with 24% in regular courts, while 46% (compared with 30% in normal courts) had stopped misusing substances by the time FDAC proceedings had ended.

The FDACs offer a supportive rather than a traditional punitive approach to substance misuse - so what does the FDAC National Unit’s closure mean for family court proceedings?

Cansford says…

The FDAC approach is one that is rehabilitative and targeted - those involved have to attend. They are responsible for agreeing their intended actions, and every few weeks they attend the court to discuss how they’re getting on.

Like anything in business, you can see changes if you measure success - and changes seem to happen simply because success is being measured. It’s an excellent approach which unfortunately, with the closure of the FDAC National Unit, is likely to revert to previous measures.

Those involved will simply be told to sort themselves out. They’ll try to do it on their own - and the lack of support will mean that a large percentage will inevitably fail. Any addiction is impossible to overcome without something positive to replace it, or encouragement along the way. Stressful times can cause setbacks - but if you know in the back of your mind that somebody will take you to task about it, in real time, it strengthens the will.

It’s sad that the unit is being drawn to a close due to the belief that it costs too much - and quite possibly also thanks to government funds moving from central to local, and local governments being forced to choose where best to spend stretched budgets. Ultimately, social care as a whole is strapped for cash, which is sad: we don’t seem to care about people anymore.

Here at Cansford, we’ve seen the benefits of the FDACs for ourselves. We process the occasional sample for the FDACs - generally at the start and the end of the proceedings - while urine or oral fluid tests will be used in between. The initial hair test sets a marker, while the final test confirms whether the FDAC proceedings have succeeded.

The oral and urine tests check for drug or alcohol use there and then: you can talk to the donor right there and say, “Look, it’s positive, why is that? Let’s talk about it.” Alternatively, you could have a sequence of positive, negative, negative tests, which confirm that drugs have become less of a problem.

The hair tests paint a longer term picture - and if spread over other drugs in addition to the one known to be the problem, can indicate whether the donor has stopped taking amphetamines, for example, but have switched to cocaine. Whatever the results, the approach is the same: it’s about supporting the psychological frame of the person being counselled.

It’s the word “support” that’s key here. The key difference in the FDACs’ approach is opting for support, rather than punishment. It works, so why wouldn’t we do more of it?