Family Drug and Alcohol Court - Information for families

What sort of treatments and support will be written into my plan?

It will be a mix of interventions. Some will be from services in your local area. Others will be the work that the FDAC team will do with you.

They will depend on what your family needs, but they will probably involve these 4 things:

1. Abstinence

Parents get support and advice on being abstinent from street drugs and alcohol and on abstaining from domestic abuse and criminal activity. This might include community drug and alcohol programmes that provide individual and group education and advice about what triggers this behaviour and how to prevent it happening again.

2. Understanding & repair

Parents get support, advice and treatment to help them understand the problems that might be causing substance misuse, domestic abuse and mental health problems. Nearly all the parents who use FDAC need help to find safer ways of dealing with how trauma has affected them. Many children need help to make sense of the disruption to their life that is caused by their parents’ difficulties that end up in care proceedings. Some parents and children need treatment for mental health problems such as anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

3. Strengthening relationships

Parents are helped to be more sensitive and responsive with their children and to strengthen their relationships with other adults, such as their partner, the child’s other parent, and the wider family. This might involve families being offered a programme called Video Interaction Guidance.

4. Child-centred lifestyle

A lifestyle where the child is at the centre. Families are helped to develop a lifestyle that enables parents to give high priority to the needs of their children. This might include help to find education and training that enables parents to care for their children and be engaged in other activities.