Family and Friends Care and Parental Substance Misuse
Yesterday I was one of 5 speakers at a seminar in the UK Parliament organised by the charity Grandparents Plus where they presented research suggests that there are around 140,000 children in the UK living in kinship placements because of parental substance misuse.
I spoke to the following slides, trying to show an audience of parliamentarians, policy makers, academics, and others from non governmental organisations what we’ve learnt from undertaking the EU Kinship Carers Project.
Grandparents Plus have produced a helpful briefing paper which summarises research they have been doing on the issue. They say:
Parental drug or alcohol abuse is leading to around 140,000 children in the UK being raised by grandparents and other family and friends carers. This is a finding from new analysis of a survey into the experiences and situation of grandparent carers carried out in summer 2010 by Grandparents Plus.
46%, or 117 of the 255 grandparents and other kinship carers who responded to the survey said that parental substance misuse was the main reason, or one of the main reasons why they were bringing up the children.
Their research confirms much of what we have found in carrying out this project; that becoming a kinship carer often causes financial difficulties, that there are health and well-being needs that are often unmet, there can be tensions between carers and parents where the parents continue to take drugs, and that contact with social workers is not always satisfactory.
They also highlight the number of children in kinship placements with special needs or a disability. They say:
Almost half (49%) of the carers who are looking after the children due to parental drug or alcohol abuse say that they are looking after at least one child with special needs or a disability. There is a particularly high incidence of children with emotional and behavioural problems, with 37% saying at least one of the children they are looking after is affected compared with 28% of carers raising children for reasons other than parental drug or alcohol misuse. This is likely to reflect the often very difficult experiences of children with their birth parents before they moved in with the carer.
Download the briefing from here.
