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It is dangerous in relation to practice and safeguarding to conclude that risks exist, or do not exist, in relation to a particular type of parental behaviour and family functioning. Using parental alcohol use as an illustrative topic this chapter explores definitions of alcohol use, the significance of parental use and the mechanisms and ways it is believed alcohol use leads to harms and then affects children and their educational experiences. In doing so this chapter recognises that it can be challenging and difficult to identify different thresholds of harms and risk from parental substance use alone. It also recognises and concludes by critically reflecting on the role teachers and educational staff have to play in assessing need, reducing pupil and parental stigma and shame around alcohol use, understanding the position of the parent and what children need to encourage their involvement and discussion around concerns like parental alcohol use.

Through association with a family member who uses substances, stigma and shame can be experienced by children and young people whose parents use substances. Such stigma and induced shame can lead to fear of being treated unfairly and for some young people the experience of bullying and discrimination from peers, adults, and practitioners. Within my research, young people often described feeling that they had ‘survived’ within their experiences of parental substance use, rather than ‘thrived’, leaving them feeling lonely and isolated from support. Stigma played a role in this survival. By understanding the stigma experienced by young people whose parents use substances, we can move beyond young people only surviving their experiences to supporting them to thrive. Within this chapter, experiences of delivering interactive workshops and teaching practitioners about the lived experiences of children and young people whose parents use substances are reflected upon. Young people who experience parental substance use want practitioners and learners to have four key takeaways when supporting or working with young people: realisation and awareness of the impacts on young people, recognition of ways young people cope, responding in ways of understanding, and resisting further stigmatisation and isolation of young people.

In Nigeria, family is most important. It is usually made up of people who are related by blood, marriage, or adoption. Family plays a major role in influencing the use of psychoactive substances by adolescents and can help protect the adolescents or the reverse. Family differs in so many ways, for example, in the extent of support for education, children’s upbringing, monitoring peer activities among others. There are certain family situations where values are not being instilled, parental and social guides are not in place to ensure that children are well brought up. High levels of economic hardship (such as unemployment), family conflict, poor communication skills, domestic violence, parental divorce or single parenting, death, parental criminal activity among others disrupt parenting which reduces adolescents’ emotional security and reinforce the use of aggression and interpersonal hostility which in turn expose them to certain risks of psychoactive substance use. It is in this context that this chapter examines how family factors affect the use of psychoactive substances among adolescents in Nigeria. Empirical investigations were carried out through a review of literature search. The findings show family factors having a significant influence on the use of psychoactive substances among adolescents in Nigeria. In addition, proper parental relationship through training of moral values, teachings of the immense danger attributed to the use of psychoactive substances through counseling and communication skills could serve as a control measure that will discourage the future use and thus improve the health, safety and the general well-being of the adolescents.

The purpose of this paper is to review the following research questions from the available literature: What evidence is there to suggest that substance misuse specifically by fathers (including alcohol and other drugs) causes wider harms, including child welfare concerns? substance misuse, recovery, parents, fathers, fathering, drugs/ alcohol services. How do professionals respond specifically to substance misuse by fathers? Do interventions aimed at parental substance misuse (particularly in the UK) include both mothers and fathers and if so how?

A scoping literature review was conducted which identified 34 papers (including scoping reviews published in 2006 and 2008, covering the period 1990-2005) and 26 additional studies published between 2002 and 2020.

The review in this paper is organised into six themes: Negative impact of men’s substance misuse problems on their parenting behaviours; quality of the relationship between parents affected by substance misuse of the fathers, in turn affecting the parenting behaviour and outcomes for children; importance to fathers of their fathering role (for example, as a financial provider); difficulties fathers may face in developing their fathering role; sidelining of the fathering role in substance misuse services; and professionals tending to focus on the mother’s role in parenting inventions and services.

This paper focusses on fathers and substance misuse, which is an under-researched field within the wider contexts of fathering research and research into parental substance misuse.

It is well established that the service system has a poor history of responding holistically to address the needs of children and families living with co-occurring complexities such as domestic violence, parental mental health and/or substance use. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to primarily describe the developmental process used to create guidelines to inform practice at the intersections of domestic violence, mental health and alcohol and other drug services, ensuring that the tactics of coercive control are visible in contexts of complexity.

The guidelines were developed through undertaking a literature review, followed by a practice-led research approach with practitioners from 33 organisations across three Australian states, Safe & Together consultants and researchers. Communities of practice composed of practitioners providing interventions to children and families were central to the approach. Data that informed the development of the guidelines included a literature review, ethnographic notes, qualitative interviews, quantitative surveys and reflections.

Practice-led research engaged practitioners in the development of guidelines to promote an integrated response to working with families experiencing domestic violence, substance use and mental health issues. The integrated approach drew from the Safe & Together model, emphasising partnering with women survivors, pivoting to the perpetrator, focusing on children’s safety and well-being, promoting worker safety, collaborating across agencies and influencing organisational change. The process demonstrated the usefulness of this integrated approach, using practitioner-based examples.

Successful iterative processes to develop the guidelines were undertaken to support cultural change towards holistic and collaborative work across multiple sectors and organisations.

This study aims to reflect on ways that the experiences of vulnerable users of drug and alcohol services can inform social work practice and policy to improve treatment engagement and mitigate negative responses to interventions.

The research used semi-structured interviews and photovoice in an interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experiences of people in treatment for drug or alcohol problems whose child was the subject of a Child Protection or Child in Need order.

The research gave insights into participants’ experiences of loss of control, unfairness and stigma. Participants described how they felt powerless in the social services system and were afraid to be open and honest with practitioners for fear of having their children removed.

The research highlighted the need for more training and professional development for social work practitioners to address power imbalance issues, and the need to promote non-threatening professional practice that removes penalties for disclosure of substance use, enabling substance users who are parents to be more honest about their drug use.

The research showed the value of phenomenological methods for investigating sensitive issues with vulnerable users of treatment services in a way that can inform policy and practice.

This paper explores ways that phenomenological research with vulnerable, hard-to-reach participants can produce insights about the potential benefits of social work practice that is non-threatening and encourages greater openness and honesty among substance users who are parents.

Purpose – This research presents results concerning the impact of family financial stress on adolescent substance use.

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing a sample of 18,614 adolescent males (9,459) and females (9,155) ages 12–17 years from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, this work utilizes stepwise logistic regression and ordinary least squares to determine whether family poverty measures are associated with adolescent high-risk behaviors of smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and using marijuana.

Findings – This study found limited support for adolescent substance use within families who are experiencing economic distress. Adolescents from families who had moved at least once in the prior year were more likely to have used cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. Furthermore, males and females who disapprove of peers’ substance using behaviors are less likely to use those substances.

Research limitations/implications – This study may not explain adolescent substance using behavior outside of the United States. Further research into socioeconomic factors should be addressed in subsequent work as should the intermediary variables pertaining to the parent–child relationship.

Practical implications – Understanding contributing factors to adolescent substance use will assist in developing social policy that will support families.

Originality/value – This study provides insight into the consequences of family characteristics both socioeconomic and psychosocial which influence adolescent substance using behaviors.

Women with mental illness, substance-dependence or dual diagnosis are at increased risk of losing care of their children which leads to poorer outcomes for mothers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the service response to substance-dependent mothers, many of whom had a dual diagnosis, and reports outcomes for their infants from the perinatal period to the end of each infant's first year.

This was a longitudinal case study of 20 women substance-dependent women and their associated care. Semi-structured interviews were held with mothers recruited from a specialist alcohol and other drug obstetric service at infant age six weeks, six and 12 months. Structured interviews were also held with counsellors from the obstetric service at infant age six weeks. Child protection (CP) workers were interviewed at infant age six weeks, six and 12 months regarding mothers involved with the service.

By 12-month follow-up, CP services had been involved with 14 mothers and eight had lost the legal care of their infant. Mothers who retained legal care were more likely to have addressed their drug use and less likely to be in a domestically violent relationship. Domestic violence, homelessness and maternal recidivism to crime tipped the scales in favour of protection of the infant through removal from maternal care, essentially leaving mothers with minimal support for reunification and reduced incentive for treatment.

Reliance on mothers’ self-reports was a limitation of the study. The small sample size restricts generalisability of findings.

Key workers should engage women (and their partners) during the perinatal period to provide support, advocacy and case-management to enable substance-dependent mothers to safely parent.

This is one of few studies to report long-term outcomes for mother/infant dyads when substance-dependence and/or mental health are present that allows women to speak for themselves. The prospective design provides a contemporaneous account of events as they unfolded in situ.

Few studies have examined coparenting characteristics and experiences of fathers who use substances and are aggressive with their partners. The purpose of this paper is to use quantitative and qualitative measures to increase knowledge of coparenting of fathers with co-occurring substance use disorders and histories of intimate partner violence (IPV) to inform intervention efforts with this population.

Baseline interviews were used from 62 fathers in a residential treatment center who participated in a longitudinal research study about interventions for substance-misusing fathers. Coparenting-related themes were identified through qualitatively analyzing transcripts of fathers’ responses to the Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations (ATSS) task. Fathers completed the Coparenting Relationship Scale (CRS), Conflict Tactics Scale Revised and the Child Trauma Questionnaire. Correlations were examined to determine if themes generated from the ATSS task were associated with IPV severity or coparenting relationship.

Qualitative analysis of transcripts revealed six themes: hostility, dismissiveness, non-confrontational, child-focused, feeling undermined and being active or non-active in the ATSS task. Qualitative themes were not significantly correlated with self-reported coparenting on the CRS except coded dismissive responses were positively associated with self-reported undermining by their coparent. Self-reported physical and psychological aggression were significantly positively associated with self-reported coparent undermining but were not significantly associated with qualitative themes.

This study is the first to use qualitative analysis of responses to coparenting situations to understand ways fathers in substance misuse treatment with histories of IPV think about coparenting to guide interventions.