Drug and alcohol services - improving holistic family support

Summary of Actions

What we are asking Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs), Children's Service Planning Partnerships (CSPPs) and other local partners to do, to implement 'A Whole Family Approach and Family Inclusive Practice – Summary of' (Section 11).

Section 11 contains the details for local partners, and should be read in full. It recognises that:

• ADPs are pivotal key strategic catalysts for change.
• It is the role of organisations within the ADP to work together in partnership to establish a common purpose and commitment to contribute to and create the conditions for change and improvement in expanding access to whole family approaches. In doing so ADPs should work with the local Children's Service Planning Partnership to agree a local approach which:
• Establishes a baseline understanding of current family support services through audit and critical assessment of what is currently available in the local area to support children, young people and adult family members affected by alcohol and drug use, and which:-
  • includes quantity, quality and reach
  • complements/informs the joint strategic needs assessment undertaken as part of duties under Pt 3 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 in relation to developing or reviewing Children's Services Plans.
  • Establishes proposals for filling gaps in provision and improving quality of available services and corresponding outcomes for families and children and young people

In response to these findings ADPs and Children's Services Planning Partnership should work across local partners, together with family members with lived experience to:

• Ensure there is a range of evidence-based family support options available locally which understands trauma and its impact.
• Adapt and change local guidance, procedures and practice as appropriate to align with this framework.
• Ensure that all family support provisions are evidence and strengths-based, person-centred, and recognises families as a key asset to nurture and protect children and promote and support recovery.
• Ensure families have access to services which are able to support them in their own right.
• Actively promote all family support options across a range of local services, platforms and networks, to ensure everyone knows what is available and how it can be accessed.
• Ensure the whole workforce is effectively trained in family inclusive practice and whole family approaches. Training delivery should be multi-agency in its approach, building on that which is required by individual employers/single agencies.
• Improve joint work between ADPs and Violence Against Women Partnerships (VAWPs) co-ordinating their activities and collaborating effectively towards common goals.
• Recognise the inter-relationship between domestic violence, alcohol and drug use, and mental health and how they can contribute to poor outcomes for children.
• Develop trauma-informed leadership approaches and upskilling our workforces in trauma-informed and trauma-responsive practice.
• Keep The Promise and support the delivery of the commitments.