The Family Drug and Alcohol Court – An Alternative Approach to Care Proceedings

Recent years has seen the launch of the Family Drug and Alcohol Court known as FDAC in many regions and now it is coming to our local court in Northampton.

This is a very welcome change in the region with much success from the pilot schemes rolled out in other regions.

FDAC is targeted at those parents who suffer with alcohol and/or drug addiction. It has been recognised that for many this is a long and vicious cycle which they struggle to break to be able to provide safe and attuned parenting to their children. For those caught in the throws of addiction there can be repeated care proceedings and removal of children from their care. Incidentally the FDAC was the think tank of a judge who had sadly been involved in the removal of 9 children from the same parent who simply could not kick their addiction and more importantly who could not access the resources and support they needed to be able to kick the addiction. So, what can be done for these parents – who desperately want to care for their children but cannot do so without access to resources to make changes which are scarce?

In care proceedings if a local authority has grave concerns about the ability of a parent to safely care for a child and the exposure of a child to a risk of suffering significant harm they will issue an application to the court for the court to consider if those parents should continue to care for that child in the short or long term. In the normal course of care proceedings there is a court hearing or hearings at the outset to consider the short term arrangements and safety measures before a timetable for assessment is ordered and then a further hearing or hearings for the court to make long term decisions for the children.

In the FDAC process care proceedings are issued in the normal way but where alcohol and/or drug addiction is the key concern the local authority may refer the case to FDAC for an assessment by their team of the parent/s which will inform the court about whether FDAC are willing to accept them onto the programme and provide a plan of work and support for the family during an assessment process.

How we are seeing this operate in Northampton is that following a referral being made to FDAC the team will review the paperwork and meet with the parent/s for a pre screen. This usually takes 2-3 weeks after the referral is made. After this they will make a decision about whether to complete an initial assessment of the parent/s over a subsequent 4 week period.

During this initial assessment the FDAC team will give a recommendation to the court about whether there are sufficient positive indicators for these parents, in terms of engagement, a desire to address their addiction, evidence of reduced drug or alcohol misuse and other positive indicators of parenting skills absent their addiction. They will prepare an intervention plan of work/support and assessment and confirm whether they are prepared to continue working with the parent/s and formally sign them up to the “Trial for Change” which is a further 12 week period of work/support and assessment.

At this stage there will be involvement by a multi disciplinary team including social workers, family support workers, psychologists, substance misuse workers. The focus is on supporting the parent to access resources to address the addiction whilst assessing their ability to parent. There is regular drug and alcohol testing and the parent is not simply thrown out of the programme for a relapse but there is a big focus on engagement and motivation to change. There are fortnightly review hearings which don’t involve all the legal representatives but just the allocated FDAC judge, the FDAC team and the parent/s to regularly monitor progress and the continuation of involvement of the team to ensure the appropriate use of the resource.

The parenting assessments will be completed by the FDAC social workers as opposed to the local authority social workers and will be informed by the work of the entire FDAC team as well as the regular drug and alcohol testing.

The indicators are that the use of this process has produced more positive outcomes for families where drug and alcohol addiction is an issue – provided it is an issue parents are motivated to address. As such at Wilson Browne we are delighted with the roll out of FDAC in Northampton.

For further advice on any care proceedings and FDAC cases please get in touch with our team of lawyers who can provide advice. We currently have capacity for new clients at all of our offices in Northampton, Wellingborough, Corby, Higham Ferrers, Kettering and Leicester.

Contact us today to speak with an expert in our Childcare and Social Services Team, or call 0800 088 6004.