Evaluation of early intervention projects with substance misusing parents

Schools and GPs urgently need to recognise the problem of substance misusing parents.

Substance misuse by parents is often a key feature of family dysfunction, resulting in children experiencing poor parenting, everyday stress and neglect, and increased risk of physical harm. The Welsh Government commissioned a collaboration including Professor Neal Hazel to examine the effectiveness of intervening early in families with substance misusing parents. The team compared models of practice to find out what was most effective in supporting families and improving outcomes for children. Policy messages include:

• Effective interventions need to be holistic and focus on the following: intra-familial communication, structure of family life, practical assistance for families, and parental attitudes towards children. Generic parenting programmes that do not deal specifically with issues create by substance misuse are unlikely to work.
• Treatment services only attract a minority of substance misusers so cannot be relied upon as sufficient referral route for supporting families in this category. Other means of identification and routes into services are required.
• Urgent measures are needed to raise the awareness and understanding of the problem of substance misusing parents among potential referrers, including schools and GPs.
• Parenting support needs to work directly with children as well or it runs the risk of continuing to ignore children’s support needs