Parental substance use, child protection and drug treatment services Dr Stephanie Taplin Professor R

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Parental substance use, child protection and drug
treatment servicesDr Stephanie Taplin
Professor Richard MattickNational Drug
Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW

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Parental substance misuse in CP population

• Anecdotally, increasing reporting of parental
  substance misuse and referral to treatment
• Estimates of alcohol and other drug use amongst
  those reported to child protection services
  ranges from 20 to 80.
• Most commonly around 50.

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Source CIS KiDS annual statistical extracts,
Corporate Information Warehouse annual data.
Produced by, DoCS Information and Reporting.
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• Is substance use increasing?

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Drugs used recently (in the last 12 months)
(NDSHS, 2008)

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• Is there increased substance misuse amongst
  parents?

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Does substance use cause maltreatment?

• Associated with high rates of child maltreatment
• But causal relationship not established
• Most research does not take into account the
  other factors in substance-using families e.g.
  mental health problems, poverty
• Substance use may be a marker for these

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Some common risk factors

• Age
• Gender
• Family functioning
• Socio-economic status disadvantage
• Mental health problems

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Effectiveness of AOD treatment

• Counselling
• Detoxification
• Residential rehabilitation
• Pharmacological treatments
• Australias first large scale examination of
  addiction treatment outcomes, the Australian
  Treatment Outcome Study (ATOS), has supported
  findings of positive outcomes from treatment,
  including decreased drug use (Teesson et al. 2003)

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Pre-treatment childcare arrangements among
parents (Stewart et al 2007)

• Men (n340) Women (n154)
• Mean number of children 2.1 1.9
• Parent caring for children () 39 64
• Partner caring for children () 65 23
• Relative caring for children () 9 34
• Social services caring 2 12
• for children ()

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Treatment programs for women

• Different needs
• More likely to have childcare responsibilities
• Concern over childrens welfare may
  encourage/discourage women to enter treatment
• Fear of having children removed
• Stigma
• Drug-using partners

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Effectiveness of AOD treatment with CP population

• Contradictory evidence
• Little research with this population
• Low rates of treatment completion
• Losing custody of child may decrease motivation
• Those in treatment have higher re-report rates
• Better results if enter quickly obtain services
• More research needed

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How do we make treatment more effective with CP
population?

• Good assessments
• Timely provision of services
• Working across sectors
• Providing comprehensive services
• Matching to treatment and additional services
• Specific services for women

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Description of child protection methadone study

• Aims
• Recruiting 200 women in methadone treatment in
  NSW who have children under 16 years
• 100 involved with DoCS and 100 not involved with
  DoCS
• Interviews with women and administrative record
  examination
• Key informant interviews
• Qualitative and quantitative data

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Australian Resources

• Australian National Council on Drugs
• www.ancd.org.au
• National Drug Strategy
• www.nationaldrugstrategy.gov.au
• National Drug Research Institute
• www.ndri.curtin.edu.au
• National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre
• www.ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au

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Contact

• Dr Stephanie Taplin
• National Drug Alcohol Research Centre
• University of NSW
• Sydney NSW 2052
• s.taplin_at_unsw.edu.au
• Fellowship funding provided under a
  collaborative research scheme between NSW DoCS
  and NDARC, UNSW.