Family courts are a revolving door for too many parents. Family drug and alcohol courts can help break the patterns that blight children’s lives; this innovation should be shared

Burstow, Paul (2017) Family courts are a revolving door for too many parents. Family drug and alcohol courts can help break the patterns that blight children’s lives; this innovation should be shared. The Guardian . ISSN 0261-3077

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Abstract

How do we upgrade the family justice system so that it disrupts patterns of family violence, drug abuse and mental distress, which blight children’s lives, at great human cost and expense to the taxpayer? These behaviours of violence, drug abuse and mental distress are passed down from generation to generation. They are amplified by traumatic childhoods, social isolation and social injustice. Standard care proceedings fail to address them. For too many parents, the family court is a revolving door, with child after child removed, often for similar reasons. Indeed, the parents themselves have often been subject to care proceedings as children. Our conventional model of family justice is not working for children. There is a need to innovate. That is why my trust, the Tavistock and Portman, has developed a family drug and alcohol court (FDAC); and we want to spread the concept.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Click on the official URL above to read this article. Published Mon 20 Nov 2017
Subjects: Children, Young People and Developmental Pyschology > Mental Disorders
Criminology > Criminal Justice Systems
Disabilities & Disorders (mental & physical) > Addictions
Department/People: Honorary Staff
URI: https://repository.tavistockandportman.ac.uk/id/eprint/1770

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