This course is aimed at any frontline staff who might be working with families, who may have an opportunity to speak to them about their alcohol use, focusing on the skills that staff who may not have had experience or knowledge of alcohol and substance misuse can use if they have concerns about a family they are working with, and where they can signpost and refer parents and families to in Brighton and Hove. Led by Oasis Project senior therapist, there will also be an opportunity to discuss past or current situations where you might have had concerns about a parents alcohol use. 

England           35.7

South East       31.7

B&H                 38.5 

 

Brighton & Hove have the 9^th highest rates out of 64 South East region areas

 

 

 

·      Oasis Project Oasis Project - We give hope to people affected by drugs & alcohol.

Family Practitioner working with parents on a 1-1 basis to engage and support them into alcohol treatment and 1-1 therapy to children/young People 5-18 affected by a parent’s alcohol misuse.

Young People Practitioner supporting children and young people affected by the parent’s drinking

 

·      Change Grow Live Change Grow Live | Charity | We can help you change your life

Adult Drug and Alcohol Treatment service offering one to one, group work, talking therapy 

and prescribing. 

 

·      Young Carers Centre The Carers Centre for Brighton & Hove — a member of The Carers Trust

Strengthening referral route to the offer; activities support and advocacy for young people impacted by parental drinking

 

·      EMAS Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (EMAS) (brighton-hove.gov.uk)

EMAS Back on Track Champion supporting all home liaison officers to have a considered approach for difficult conversations around use of alcohol with parents/carers.

 

·      Parental relationships Parent relationships (brighton-hove.gov.uk)

Parents as Partners groupwork intervention for parents in conflict where drinking is a factor

 

 

 

 

All professionals and services working with parents, families children and young people should assume that any child or young person living with a parent who is problem drinking is being harmed by that behaviour.  

 
What Good Looks Like

All services

•      Honest, non-judgemental emotionally supportive practice is embeddedwithin a wide range of services encountered by families - there is a good understanding of the context and lived experience of children, young people and families impacted by parental alcoholism.

•      There is dedicated time within roles to build and maintain links between schools, social services and community provision that links the support for children, young people and their parents and family – from universal services such as school all the way through to specialist alcohol treatment services.

•      Places of triage and assessment in the system are alert to identifying the needs of children and young people where parents are identified as having alcohol issues but may not be in treatment.

•      When a parent is identified as having an issue with alcohol, places of triage and assessment in the system identify children and young people as potential Young Carers and refer children and young people for support as appropriate.

 

•      Support and treatment is delivered with an explicit understanding of the human need for autonomy competence and relatedness by building understanding and expertise, trust, and authenticity within the working relationship.

•      Trauma-informed recovery approachesare co-produced with clients - Converging goals around desired treatment outcomes which are informed by an understanding of the underlying psychological issues and potential trauma experiences of those experiencing alcohol misuse issues.

•      An understanding of socioeconomic and sociocultural context is embedded in the design and delivery of services for families impacted by alcohol misuse – Recognising that structural inequalities relating to experiences of poverty, class culture and gender can and do impact on the development of alcohol addiction problems as well as the take-up of services. 

•      Services deliver a whole-family intervention which is designed to work through individual recovery and resilience journeys for family members on tofamily resilience – this will likely involve the wider family and friends structure and recognise the importance of kinship care in ensuring children and young people’s wellbeing.

•      Services that provide adult support and treatment for alcoholism identify children and young people in the family as potential Young Carers and refer children and young people for support as appropriate.

•      Young people’s substance use treatment and prevention services, recognise the impact of parental alcohol use upon their child’s use of substances and work with the whole family wherever possible.

 

·      Adult treatment commissioning includes a dedicated family service element that provides for a whole family response to parents and carers entering treatment with therapeutic support for children and young people and parental/kinship relationship support.

 

·      Training for practitioners working with families affected by parental problem drinking is delivered in the context of the relationship with parents, children and young people and the wider family. Some roles may work only with parents others may work with the whole family or only with children and young people.

·      Entry level training on the impacts of parental problem drinking on children and young people, how to identify the issue and engage clients around is mandatory for professionals in all services working with parents, children and young people and families 

·      Teacher training includes entry level training on the impact of parental problem drinking on children and young people and how to engage parents to provide signposting to support.

 

 

The Project which ran from April 2019 to the end of September 2021 took a partnership approach with a strong focus on providing support to children and young people in affected families alongside treatment and support to their parents and family members.

 

The project supported children and young people whose parents have not yet sought help for their drinking via the ru-ok?service offer as well as working therapeutically with those whose parents are in treatment and recovery through the Young Oasisoffer. The project also provided direct intervention for parents via a Family Practitioner sitting within Oasis whose role focused on engaging and supporting parents into alcohol treatment.

 

Having Young Carers Centreas a partner helped us to identify and support the needs of those children and young people who are carers for their parent/s and to explore together what being a Young Carer means in the context of parental alcoholism.

 

The adult treatment service team at Change Grow Livehas worked to ever increasing demand and caseloads over the course of Back on Track.   Nonetheless, it has engaged in additional training to better understand the impact of parental alcoholism on children and young people.  At a practice level the team continues to explore the needs of those adults in treatment who are parents.

 

The Ethnic Minority Achievement Servicehas a remit to support education engagement and achievement for children and young people in families which English as an Additional Language. This service has been working with families whose cultural references to alcohol can be problematic and where daily use of alcohol is normalised. Understanding the cultural context for these parents whose primary source of information may be from their home country is important in any signposting or support to treatment.

 

For the figures on what Back on Track achieved check out the information set ’Take a look at our figures’

 

 

 

 

Ru-ok? – Adolescent Substance Use and Sexual Health Service; Brighton and Hove City Council

Change Grow Live -Adult Treatment Service

 

Young Carers Centre – Support and advocacy for young carers

Ethnic Minority Achievement Service– Support to children in school and their families; Brighton & Hove City Council

 

Parental Conflict Programme – Citywide programme of training and interventions; Brighton and Hove City Council 

You can dip into any section of the report using the headings at the top of each column to guide you. We recommend you read this short introduction to the project and the following key recommendations first to give you an overview of the work.

This has been from the outset a partnership of services and organisations aiming to better meet the needs of families impacted by parental problem drinking.  There has been debate, learning challenge and success along the way. The learning has both helped us understand what works and challenged us to keep aiming higher.

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Use the slide bar at the bottom of the page to move right and left across the columns - you’ll see each column has a heading at the top. Don’t forget to check out the University of Sussex evaluation findings on the far right column.

Use the scroll bars at the right hand side of each column to scroll up and down the column and then just click into each item.

We hope you enjoy the report