Parents who have had their children removed are likely to have serious and complex problems that are difficult to overcome, and it may take them several attempts to recover from drug addiction. They could also lack the strong motivating factor of living with children and may not be getting family-related support. Adults who live with children other than their own are another complex group because they tend to have more problems when they start treatment: they are more likely to use heroin or crack, inject drugs and have a housing problem. They also tend to have poorer outcomes. For instance, they are less likely to complete treatment successfully than parents who live with their own children: 36% of those who started and left treatment in 2011-12 completed their program successfully. However, they are retained in treatment for at least 12 weeks at similar rates to the rest of the non-parent treatment population. The reasons these people don’t do so well in treatment are unclear. They tend to have a worse starting point than others, which may lead to poorer outcomes. They also may not have the same motivating factors that parents have, and they might not access the same range of family-related support.
If a person lives with somebody else’s children and he or she has a serious drug problem, this may present a safeguarding issue, meaning the children need to be protected. However, children’s services should work in partnership with substance misuse services because having these people in treatment gives an opportunity to help them tackle their drug problem and address any other issues they face, to the ultimate benefit of the children in the family. Young parents in treatment Over two thirds (69%) of parents in treatment who live with their children are over 30 years old. The number of parents aged under 18 is very small (115 out of 15,031 young people starting treatment in 2011-12, while a further 145 said they were parents not living with their children). More young people in treatment live with children who are not their own (23%), though the majority of these are likely to be living with siblings rather than children of a partner. These small numbers make it difficult to draw any firm conclusions about the various family groups. But it is clear that young people’s substance misuse services need to work with a range of local services to support young people who are parents, to address their drug and alcohol use and other needs.