Welcome to another week.
A report just published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children of Alcoholics looks at the correlation between alcohol abuse by parents and child injuries. The APPG’s report concludes that 37% of child deaths and serious injuries through neglect are linked to parental drinking.
It’s a significant statistic, which should be on councils’ agendas to tackle, however a Freedom Of Information request revealed that over half of all councils still do not have a strategy to help children of alcoholics (COAs), almost all councils are cutting their budgets for alcohol and drug treatment services and in more than half of councils, referrals to alcohol treatment services are falling.
APPG Chair, Labour MP Liam Byrne has a helpful summary of all the relevant details on this report on his blog, including those involved in the document’s production.
The report has been published to coincide with International Children of Alcoholics Week which runs from 11th-17th February, 2018.
Liam’s web page offers key findings from the report:
- Between 2011-14, ‘Parental Alcohol Misuse’ (PAM) was implicated in 37% of cases involving the death or serious injury of a child through neglect or abuse in England.
- 18% of children reported feeling embarrassed by seeing their parent drunk, while 15% reported their bedtime routine had been disrupted as a result of their parents’ drinking.
- 61% of care applications in England involved misuse of alcohol and/or drugs.
- Children living with alcohol-dependent parents report feeling socially isolated, and are reluctant to seek help due to feelings of stigma, shame and guilt about not wanting to betray parents: Calls to helplines reveal their chronic worry and fear.
- Children may have to take on caring responsibilities for the affected parent or younger siblings which can negatively impact school attendance and homework.
- ‘Parental Alcohol Misuse’ leads to inconsistent and unpredictable parenting.
Liam explains that the report highlights several other very serious findings relating to children in these scenarios, which tell us that parental alcohol misuse showed increased risks of obesity, eating disorders, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children, as well as a heightened risk of hospital admissions and injuries.
The APPG offers a nine point plan to tackle this issue:
- Create a national strategy for COAs
- Properly fund local support for COAs
- Increase availability of support for families battling addiction to alcohol
- Boost education and awareness for children
- Boost education and training for those with a responsibility for children
- Develop a plan to change public attitudes
- Revise the national strategy to tackle alcoholism to focus on price and availability
- Curtail the promotion of alcohol – especially to children
- Take responsibility for reducing rates of alcoholism
Given that 61% of care applications involve parents who have alcohol or drug dependencies and that a significant number of children involved are at risk of injury or death, our question this week then, is just this: what would your plan be to tackle this issue?
The full report can be accessed here.
Researching Reform 
And how many deaths are linked to alcohol abuse by members of Foster families,adoptive parents,or social workers??????????
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i cannot name the grandmother who has never taken alcohol or drugs in her life but was accused of doing so, the lies made up of parents and grandparents is terrible but we never hear of the foster carers and their abuse of kids, all the Governments want to do is steal the kids on lies,
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/probe-launched-house-horrors-where-11809946
I would like to see evidence of one care home that did not abuse children, but all will go on and on with meetings and more all for money and to sexually satisfy the peados and sex abuser, and we cannot ask questions under the secret acts because Tony Blair shut the door for a 100 years. But its ok to keep blaming the parents and grandparents of abuse but the Great so called British Empire has sexually abused thousands of children.and nothing happens to the abusers and children lose their childhood and family most ending up living on the streets or sectioned under the mentle health or put into detention centres all to keep being abused.
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“we cannot ask questions under the secret acts because Tony Blair shut the door for a 100 years.”
Maggie,
what i would like to say to that is if Tony Blair was able to change it to 100 yrs then whats stopping another Prime minister changing it back to 50 or even less. its all about public and campaign pressure.
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dont be silly Dr M, they are all in the same boat protecting each other, yes the nation need to protest on mass, but as the British are known as lambs to the slaughter, so nothing will change and as for god knows how many 100s of years the children will be stolen from loving families, look at Oxfam in the news boy does it go on, and no one has such as questioned the United Nations
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This country if not the entire World is in need of a full System Reboot.
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reblogged
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Genuine cases of alcohol and/or drugs abuse by parents is one thing but the false claims of Social workers who tell lies in case files accusing parents of Alcohol use when its not true is quite another. Maggie Tuttle herself is a victim of this.how do the authors of the report tackle that problem.
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Nothing is ever wrote about the people on the other side of the system as all above have mentioned. To be accused and not able to defend yourself and your children is unbelievable. Try the CHILDREN and jus
Judge’s are not helping by drumming the lies into the children some who haven’t got a clue what is being said because they have never been in the situation. Msm are playing a big part as we are all very well aware of ,no thought for children or families the money wheel increases daily as more money is made.
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Social workers often accuse parents of being drunk or high even when they have never touched a drop of alcohol or illegal drug in all their lives.They then promise that if they go into a rehabilitation unit their child will be restored but having forced them into such a unit they use their very attendance to prove they are alcoholics or drug addicts !
And so it goes on……….
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Yes there is no doubt this is happening. Social workers will use just about any dirty trick they can to win a court case. the Judges are simply not asking the right questions about whats going on and they dont challenge LA evidence or ask for information to back up their claims. the family courts are simply not good enough or they are corrupt or possibly both.
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