Family Drug and Alcohol Court

(asked on 28th June 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Family Drug and Alcohol Courts.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 5th July 2018

Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDAC) are an interesting and innovative approach to supporting families. Local FDAC services, and other innovative models similar to FDAC, will continue to be funded by those local areas who choose to establish or commission these services locally.

In the period 2015 to 2016, the government provided funding to the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust to establish the FDAC National Unit. Funding for the National Unit was originally provided on the basis that it would expand the FDAC model to new areas and that it would help the National Unit to be self-sustaining. Unfortunately, this has proved challenging, despite considerable effort and investment by both the government and the NHS trust. We have extended funding for the FDAC National Unit four times since the period 2015 to 2016.

Most recently, we committed to providing funding to the NHS trust to the end of September 2018 to support its application to the government’s Life Chances Fund (LCF). The trust’s application to the LCF had two aims. The first aim was to develop a social impact bond model of funding for local FDACs. The second aim was to develop a sustainable way to fund the FDAC National Unit. Unfortunately, the trust recently decided to withdraw their application to the LCF. We understand that this means that the trust is considering the future of the FDAC National Unit, including its potential closure. Officials are working with the trust to ensure that the impact of the potential closure of the FDAC National Unit on local sites is minimised and that any resources developed by the FDAC National Unit remains accessible in the future to the trust and others interested in the FDAC model..

In relation to the effectiveness of FDACs, the Department of Education has, under the Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme, funded a continuation study[1] (published in December 2016) which looked at the outcomes of FDAC cases five years after the original evaluation of the London Family Drug and Alcohol Court study.

Data, on the number of cases that have been heard by each FDAC court since its inception, is collected and retained by local authorities who are responsible for setting up, managing and supporting local FDACs around the country, as part of their child protection and care proceedings work. The government does not collect such data.

The government is committed to finding effective approaches to spreading innovative, evidence-based models of practice to local areas.

[1] Harwin J, Alrouh B, Ryan M, McQuarrie T, Golding L, Broadhurst K, Tunnard J and Swift S (December 2016) ‘After FDAC: outcomes 5 years later. Final Report’ Lancaster University. http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/cfj-fdac/publications.

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