Dealing with children whose parents have an alcohol problem: an approach to concerns about role legitimacy of a range of professionals working with children and child protection issues.
Introduction
Despite a significant number of children living in households where at least one parent has an alcohol related problem, many professionals working with children do not always see it as part of their role or feel sufficiently trained or confident enough to deal with this issue. This is a major block to work, which mostly involves the usual type of approach and skills used by these professionals, which would otherwise considerably help children to develop coping mechanisms for dealing with their family situations. Further, when professionals are concerned about a child and parental drinking is thought to be an issue, they often feel that a referral to social services must be made, which is not always in the child's best interests.
This paper has been produced by Professor Richard Velleman, possibly the leading expert on resilience factors in children affected by problem drinking parents, in collaboration with a group of key experts (see Appendix 2 for details). Its aim is to provide authoritative guidance and help to teachers, social workers and primary care workers concerning the legitimacy of their role with children affected by problem drinking parents and the validity of steps that might be taken to support these children.
We often treat children who have to cope with a parent’s drinking problem very differently to the way we treat other children whose parents have different problems. This should not happen. It is not fair on them, and there is no need for it. This paper outlines the problem, looks at reasons why this problem arises and then goes on to look at possible approaches and solutions. The paper underpins the toolkits produced by Alcohol Concern and Bath University in partnership with the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS), Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association (CPHVA) for teachers, social workers, GPs and practice nurses, health visitors, school nurses and alcohol workers and forms a solid base from which to develop practice with this much ignored group of children.
Key Points
We (generic professionals such as teachers, health visitors, general practitioners, youth workers, etc) who discover that a child has a parent with an alcohol problem GENERALLY DO NOT NEED to refer that child on to child protection agencies (e.g. social services), although this may be appropriate after further assessment. Instead, we should focus on the child and the child’s distress, and use some simple skills to help the child cope and make decisions about how to make the best of their situation. These simple skills include active listening; helping the child explore what they are doing now, and can or could do in the future, to reduce their distress; and helping the child recognise and access support from other adults in their lives.
This does not mean that a referral to social services is never appropriate, but reacting differently to children of a parent with an alcohol problem than to children of a parent with other problems can exclude them from the basic pastoral care which is part of the general role of a range of professionals working with children.
Children who have to cope with a parent’s drinking problem, and who find this difficult, are often treated very differently to the way that other children, who are dealing with other parental problems, are treated by us as generic professionals.
Numbers involved Between 780,000 and 1.3 million children are affected by parental alcohol problems (Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England, Cabinet Office, March 2004) There are eight million adult problem drinkers in England and many of these are likely to be parents (Department of Health, 2005) Parental alcohol problems often co-exist with other parental difficulties that we as generic professionals are likely to recognise and deal with in our daily work with children, for example parental illness, bereavement, marital break-up/divorce, unemployment.
Effects on children
Children are often negatively affected when a parent has an alcohol problem. They may be rather quiet, and may seem preoccupied. They may ‘act out’ and seem to seek attention. They may not seem to concentrate on their schoolwork, or not produce homework or produce work of a poor quality. They may lose interest in social activities. Of course children act out in these ways for many reasons. They may just be going through adolescence, or their behaviour may be due to other problems. But the point here is that these things may occur because of parental problem drinking, and it is our responsibility to interpret the signals to find out why this child is behaving in these ways, and then to respond supportively.
Often, these children are not identified as children of problem drinkers, and they are dealt with symptomatically. If they are quiet they may be ignored, if they ‘act out’ they may be disciplined, they may be exhorted to work harder or to produce better homework.
We often do not feel (as generic professionals) that it is legitimate for us to ask more searching question (which might even feel like prying). But, as is outlined below, we do feel we can ask questions about other types of problem, and we do not feel that this is prying in the same way.
But even if the underlying issue (them having to cope with parental problem drinking) is identified, we often ‘freeze’ and feel that dealing with such a parental problem is outside our competence. In these cases, we either ignore the issue, or we may refer the child on - frequently to child protection services as a child protection risk, or possibly to a helping service such as a school counsellor, or even to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service CAMHS.
Comment/Rate Share this Article