Family Drug and Alcohol Court’s (FDAC) ‘humane’ approach keeps more families together

‘There must be no slowing down, no pulling back. FDAC and Pause – both of them, for they are complementary – must be nurtured and supported. The FDAC National Unit plays a vital role as midwife and health visitor to new FDACs as they prepare and then implement their plans. Without the FDAC National Unit the continuing roll‐out of new FDACS is likely to falter. We cannot, we must not allow this to happen. I trust that government, both national and local, will heed the call.

How does this relate to the crisis? The point is very simple. Our objective in everything we do is, of course, the welfare of the child. But the child is not the problem. Insofar as there is a ‘problem’, it lies with the parent. And mothers with problems can have many children, too many of them in due course becoming the subject of care proceedings. As the recently published research by Professor Karen Broadhurst has demonstrated, the statistics are very striking. A mother with problems can generate 5, 10 or even more care cases down the years, as her successive children are taken into care. If we can only solve, as FDAC and Pause so successfully solve, the ‘problem’, then the consequence is a reduction in the number of new cases coming into the system.

FDAC, Pause and similar projects are, at present, the best hope, indeed, in truth, the only hope, we have of bringing the system, the ever increasing numbers of care cases, under control. If anyone knows any better I shall be delighted to hear what it is. But until they do I shall remain, as hitherto, an ardent, committed and enthusiastic supporter of FDAC and Pause’. Sir James Munby, View from the Presidents Chambers