Advisory Group meets for the first international study to explore the impact of family drug and alcohol courts on parental offending

Advisory Group meets for the first international study to explore the impact of family drug and alcohol courts on parental offending

A Research Advisory Group has now met to discuss the first study internationally to explore the impact of family drug and alcohol courts, if any, on parental offending.

Funded by the ESRC, this project will create the largest longitudinal cohort study to date of recipients of FDACs by linking FDAC, Cafcass and Police National Computer administrative datasets to track parental outcomes.

Family drug and alcohol courts (FDACs) are an innovative holistic problem-solving approach to care proceedings. Research has found that by treating the parental problems that led to the care proceedings during the court case, family reunification rates and parental substance misuse cessation rates are higher than in ordinary care proceedings. International evidence confirms the same results.

An important gap in evidence is the impact of FDACs (or their international equivalent 'family drug treatment courts') on offending behaviour, although, it is known that parents who are involved in care proceedings frequently have offending records too. The proposed study offers a major opportunity to redress this knowledge deficit.

Find out more here: Investigating the impact of family drug and alcohol courts (FDACs) on parental offending - a data linkage study