This week the government pledged to pump an extra £6million into helping the children of parents who are struggling with dug or alcohol addiction get support.
There are currently 200,000 children of addicted parents in the UK according to charity the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).
Figures produced by the NSPCC for 2016/17 show that their helpline received on average 200 calls from the children of parents with substance abuse problems, a rise of 30% from 2015/16. A third of the children referred to the police or local council safeguarding teams were aged between one and five and 581 were less than one year old.
In a statement on the charity’s website John Cameron Head of Helplines for the NSPCC said ‘every child should be able to grow up in a home where they feel safe and supported. The sad fact is that many young people are being deprived of this simple right due to one or both their parents abusing drink or drugs’.
The charity provides support for families in this situation through its Parents Under Pressure programme, which helps parents with addiction or other issues to develop secure and healthy relationships with their children.
Announcing the extra funding on Monday Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC, ‘these measures will ensure thousands of children affected by their parent’s alcohol dependency have access to the support they need’.
The funding will come jointly from the Department of Work and Pensions and the Department of Health and Social care. Local authorities will be able to bid for a share of £4.5million to use to help speed up referrals and cut the number of children going into care.
Also speaking to the BBC Labour MP Jon Ashworth, himself the son of an alcoholic, welcomed the funding as a ‘real breakthrough’, adding that it was a ‘huge step forwards for Britain’s innocent victims of booze’, going on to that the children of parents who drink to excess can ‘end up scarred for life’.
There is no doubting that alcohol addiction is a real problem with around 9% of men and 3% of women showing signs of alcohol dependence and the NHS recording 6592 alcohol related deaths in 2013 (source: www.drinkaware.co.uk).
It is also clear that, as John Cameron of the NSPCC says, ‘vitally important for the wellbeing of the whole family’ that parents struggling with addiction can get treatment and their children are able to access support.
The problem, as all too often in government interventions in mental health policy, that good intentions are not backed by adequate resources. In real terms £6million is a comparatively small amount of money being handed out to address a problem requiring a much larger investment.
As for councils bidding for a share of £4.5million to improve support for children of parents with substance abuse issues any funding is better than nothing. However, the small slices of this budget they are likely to win will not plug the gap left by the drug and alcohol services many have been obliged to cut to the bone as part of the relentless demands of ‘austerity’.
The other area what is, essentially, little more than an eye- catching announcement, fails to address is the shortage of psychiatrists trained to work with children and the general demoralization of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) workforce, which has been haemorrhaging staff for several years.
Figures released by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) earlier this year show that in some parts of the country there are fewer than four CAMHS trained psychiatrists for every hundred thousand children. A problem partly fuelled by government intransigence over recruiting from overseas.
Dr Bernadka Dubika, Chair of the college’s Child and Adolescent faculty said in a press statement, short staffing in CAMHS services is no secret, we are already struggling, and the government’s own Green Paper Impact Assessment predicts a rise in referrals’, adding that ‘recruiting from overseas is key to quickly recruiting more qualified doctors specializing in children’s mental health’.
The RCP has called for CAMHS trained psychiatrists to be added to the Home Office’s ‘shortage occupation list’, which gives priority to recruiting priority areas that cannot be sourced from within the EU.
Children of parents with substance abuse problems are over-represented in the 10% of children aged between five and sixteen who have a mental health condition, 70% of whom according to the Children’s Society do not receive and an adequate or timely intervention. This is vitally important because as research conducted for the Mental Health Foundation shows 50% of enduring mental health problems are established by the age of fourteen.
Policies move in and out of fashion, at the moment thanks to media prominence and the involvement of the funkier members of the royal family, mental health is something every politician seeking some good PR wants to be associated with. For a subject often surrounded by stigma and awkwardness this is a good thing because it breaks down barriers and gets people talking.
The problem is that taking meaningful action will cost money and may take longer than the political cycle feels comfortable with. Any extra funding is helpful, but it does not compensate for the exhaustion of CAMHS staff of all grades who feel stretched to breaking point.
All children who are struggling with their mental health, for whatever reason, deserve access to adequate services when they need them. If that doesn’t happen, then as Jon Ashworth, a man who knows from hard experience says; they risk being ‘scarred for life’.
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