This includes 1-to-1 support and therapeutic group work, which are provided alongside parenting guidance and intervention.įeedback from parents who successfully graduate and complete the programme is positive, with families staying in touch and celebrating successful recovery years after leaving the service. It is designed to encourage the development of parenting, life, and social skills through engagement in daily structure, routines and activity. The therapeutic community model is a participative, group-based approach to address substance use and focus on recovery. The specially designed treatment programme is focused on long-term recovery. Our family service offers safe, structured residential drug and alcohol treatment to parents and their children, up to and after birth. Recent data shows that 84% of families complete our programme successfully and research has shown that 70% of families were still together and thriving four years after completion of the programme. We have been supporting families for more than 20 years and achieving positive outcomes. This includes single parents, couples and pregnant women and the service allows them to address their substance use whilst caring for their children. The service, based in Sheffield, supports families from across England and Wales in an abstinence- based residential setting.
Our National Specialist Family Service works with families to break down these barriers and allow parents to break that cycle whilst in a supportive environment caring for their children. We are aware that confronting change is not easy, especially when balancing the needs of parenting. Enabling families to end this cycle of addiction and abuse allows stability and reduced impact much wider than the family themselves. Children will grow up wanting to know their parent is safe, can meet their needs and can provide them with a stable loving home. We are aware that addiction has a big cost on society, where one person’s substance use can affect up to five others, including those directly related and children. They are unlikely to trust, or feel able to be open with, professionals in order to confront change.
This can be due to them feeling fear of judgment, shame due to societal stigma towards addiction or that their children may be removed from their care. Parents can find it hard to make the decision to access appropriate support to address longstanding and complex needs relating to their substance use. Sadly, support, education and the systems around families can be stigmatising towards addiction, fail to support positive change for the whole family and inadvertently perpetuate intergenerational trauma and addiction. It is recognised that many adults accessing drug and alcohol support have witnessed substance use and experienced trauma in their own childhood.