Sustaining FDACs in times of austerity

Sophie Kershaw Co-Director of the FDAC National Unit and Mary Ryan Independent Consultant and FDAC National Unit 

This ninth blog from the Family Drug and Alcohol Court National Unit (FDAC NU) focuses on the challenges of sustainability facing FDACs and the ways in which the NU supports FDAC sites in making the case for ongoing funding.

At the time of writing this blog there are nine FDAC specialist teams working across 12 courts and providing a service to 15 local authorities. The London FDAC received cross government funding for the first four years of operation (2008-2012) and some of the more recent sites received part-funding from the DfE Children’s Social Care Innovation programme for one year (2015-2016). The current position for all FDACs is that they are commissioned services without central government funding. Money is needed to pay for the multi-disciplinary specialist FDAC team. This team works intensively with parents during the course of care proceedings as well as working closely with children’s services adult treatment services and other local agencies working with the family. The team supports the parent in court every two weeks at non-lawyer reviews ...

Read the full article here.