Parental Substance Misuse and Child Welfare

By Bryanna Kroll and Andy Taylor.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN 85302791X
£17.95

There is increasing awareness of the impact of substance misuse by parents on the development and welfare of their children.

Often there is a divide between professionals working with adults with substance misuse problems and those in child welfare, with neither having a good understanding of the other’s discipline. This book should help bridge that gap.

Drawing on a range of literature and interviews with professionals, it offers practitioners with either adults or children the chance to gain a much fuller understanding of the relationship between substance misuse and parental capacity.

This review of the literature highlights the value of an ecological approach, such as that underpinning the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families published by the Department of Health in 2000.

By offering a holistic approach to identifying the needs of any individual child and their parents, through balancing the child’s developmental needs alongside the capacity of parents to meet those needs and the influences, positive and negative, of the family and community, this is particularly suited to substance misusing parents and their children.

Ruth Sinclair is director of research, National Children’s Bureau.