Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) - Evaluation Research Study

 

 

In January 2008 the first ever family drug and alcohol court in the UK opened in London at Wells Street Family Proceedings Court. It is funded by central government and Camden, Islington and Westminster local authorities. It will run until December 31st 2010.
 
The main purpose of FDAC is to see whether it can improve outcomes for children subject to care proceedings by offering parents with substance misusing problems:

FDAC is based on a model widely used in the USA. The national US evaluation found that outcomes for parents and children were better when families took part in specialist drug and alcohol courts. Key findings were:-

The results were attributed to the fact that more parents took up and completed substance misuse treatments than in traditional courts and services.
 
FDAC has been adapted to comply with English law and social care services. The adaptations are based on the findings of an extensive feasibility study conducted by Mary Ryan, Judith Harwin and Clare Chamberlain (2005).
 
Instead of a normal care proceedings court process, a family entering FDAC will go through a slightly different process. They have the same judge for the whole process with frequent non-lawyer review hearings where they can talk directly to the judges. The court’s specialist multi-disciplinary team provided by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust Foundation in partnership with the children’s charity, Coram Family provides immediate assessment and support to deal with the substance misuse problems and other difficulties that interfere with their parenting capacity. Parents may be linked with parent mentors who have experienced similar problems.
 
The FDAC Evaluation Project

The Nuffield Foundation and Home Office have funded Brunel University to carry out an independent first stage evaluation of FDAC.  The aims are:

A final report will be presented to the Nuffield Foundation in July 2010.

  

 

We are a multidisciplinary research team with extensive experience of evaluation in child care law and practice for vulnerable children. Led by Professor Judith Harwin, our team includes an economist, a research psychologist specializing in parenting, a child care lawyer and policy analysts.

 

 

An interim report is now available and the final report will be submitted to the Nuffield Foundation at the end of July 2010. We also plan to hold conferences and seminars on the findings of the study and prepare articles for publication.