Family Drug and Alcohol Court - Information for families

The FDAC work has to fit with two different sorts of timescales.

One timescale is about what is right for each child based on their age and needs and the other is about what the court process requires. The very best result from your time in FDAC is that you overcome your problems in time to meet your children’s needs.

The question is how long your children can afford to wait for the situation to improve. The answer is that we can’t afford to wait so long that your children miss out on the second best result.
This might be getting settled with a member of your wider family, living with foster carers or being adopted.

The court also has timescales. A limit of 26 weeks has been set for finishing care proceedings. This is what is expected for those FDAC cases where children will not be returning
home to their parents. If families are making good progress in FDAC the court will usually allow proceedings to go on beyond 26 weeks.