Children in Need and Child Protection Handbook - Parental Substance use/misuse
Procedure.
Specific services and procedures
Parental Substance use/misuse Procedure.
Purpose:
To identify support needs or child protection issues for clients accessing the Specialist Drug and
Alcohol Service in order to seek relevant support or refer to relevant agencies as part of a care
and treatment package.
Background:
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The report “Working Together to Safeguard Children (Department of Health) provides a
national framework within which agencies and professionals can agree upon ways of
working together.
In describing an integrated approach, with shared responsibility, the report states:
“Promoting children’s wellbeing and safeguarding them from significant harm depends
crucially upon effective information sharing, collaboration and understanding between
agencies and professionals”
All health professionals play an essential role in identification and management of
vulnerable children or children at risk of significant harm.
Principles:
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Alcohol or drug use in itself, does not necessarily indicate the need for child protection
procedures.
An assessment of the relationship between parental alcohol or drug use and parenting
capacity be undertaken.
This information should be used to inform care and treatment plans and seek support
from other agencies where relevant.
The parents consent should be sought in seeking support from other agencies except
where the child is considered to be at risk from significant harm; in these circumstances
the child’s needs are always paramount. The parent should be informed of any decisions
to refer for further assessment.
Procedure:
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Every parent should be informed at assessment of the service confidentiality policy.
A risk screen should be completed for every client of the service who is a parent or carer
of children (see appendix 1).
The risk screen should be presented and discussed at the team meeting except where
there is significant concern.
Where there is an identified risk of significant harm the clinician should discuss with their
line manager or supervisor and if appropriate an immediate referral should be made to
the relevant Children’s Service Team (see appendix 2).
The referral should be made by telephone to the relevant duty social worker (Bath or
North East Somerset). This should be followed up by a written C2.
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All contact with the Children’s Service Team should be clearly documented in the client’s
clinical notes.
If the risk screen identifies areas of concern/and or risk, a full assessment should be
completed to inform care and treatment plans and seek relevant support from other
agencies (see appendix 3)
A summary of the proposed management should be fully documented and incorporated
into individual care plans.
A team review date should be set according to the level of concern or risk identified.
Issues of information sharing should reflect the current protocol.
Where a child is thought to be in need or at risk from significant harm, we may be
requested to contribute to the initial or core assessment. Ideally this assessment should
be shared with the client prior to submission to Children’s Service (See appendix 4).
Planning meetings, core groups and Child Protection Conferences should be attended
and a CP5 report completed.
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