Support for Parents
Who do we work with?
Holding Families supports parents and carers who have problems with drugs or alcohol. We refer to both as "parents" in our work. Parents may not live with their children but substance misuse may still have an negative impact on relationships in the family.
Adults who use substances may live in a household with children. This can be partners of a parent, relatives, friends and so on. It is important to be aware of what children are exposed to and how they feel about it. We can help with this.
We support families from "early intervention" to parents who have had their children placed in local authority care or with kinship carers (family or friends). It is important to understand that services wherever possible want to keep children with their families, and in most cases, parents have the opportunity to change their behaviour so they can keep their families together.
Why?
Parents who use drugs or alcohol may not realise that they are causing any harm to Children and Young People. This is why we work with parents who may never have accessed services before, so that we can support families to work together to make necessary changes to improve their lives.
We know from reasearch and from our own work that drugs or alcohol can have an effect on children. We understand that because parents use drugs or alcohol does not mean they are a “bad” parent, but there are certain things that they need to change. This will be different for every parent, every child and every family. This is why Our Ethos of working is to use a Person Centred approach because we do not expect the needs of any two families to be the same.
Drug use
We work with parents who have problems with alcohol and any drug including over the counter medicines. This includes cannabis, heroin, Neurofen, Codeine, Amphetamine and anything else that has an effect on parenting or children.
Parents who refer into Holding Families are at different stages of their recovery which means they may be heavily using drugs or alcohol or they may have ben abstinent for a while and want to work with us to make even more improvements for their families.
We work with all types of substance use. Drugscope define this as:
"Problem or problematic drug use tends to refer to drug use which could either be dependent or recreational. In other words, it is not necessarily the frequency of drug use which is the primary 'problem' but the effects that drugtaking have on the user's life (i.e they may experience social, financial, psychological, physical or legal problems as a result of their drug use)."
What do we offer?
Holding Families offers a group work programme for parents and one to one sessions. We also have drop-ins and Service User Groups which parents can access even after they have completed Holding Families. This ensures parents have ongoing support.
Holding Families works with exisiting services so any services who are already involved with families and they will remain involved but we may introduce new services to families who may be able to help. Examples of these services may be children's services, drug and alcohol treatment services, and schools.
This work will be delivered alongside our Children's work and our family meetings. We also make sure that every parents has access to treatment in their area.
How to get help
If you are a parent, carer, child or young person and you need our help, please phone Early Break Bury/Rochdale on 0161 7233880 or Early Break East Lancs on 01282 604022 and ask to speak to someone from the Holding Families Team.
If you are a professional and you wish to make a referral, please complete the Holding_Families_Referral_Form_290911.doc with the parent(s) and send it into us at info@earlybreak.co.uk. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the service.
If you are concerned about the safety of a child or young person, please contact your local children's safeguarding team or the police if you believe a child has been harmed.
If you live out of area, the following websites are useful for finding services but if you need any help, please call us or email us:
http://www.adfam.org.uk/find_a_local_support_group
http://www.starsnationalinitiative.org.uk