Seeing and hearing the child: rising to the challenge of parental substance misuse | Children’s voices: living with parental substance misuse

Navigation menu list for sections above the current page: NSPCC Home; NSPCC inform; Training and consultancy

Child protection learning resources: NSPCC EduCare child protection awareness programmes; CORE-INFO leaflets; Forthcoming titles

Seeing and hearing the child | Children’s voices

rising to the challenge of parental substance misuse

Front cover of Seeing and hearing the child Resources to help you identify and respond to the needs of children living with parents who misuse substances.

Download the Seeing and hearing the child / Children’s voices flyer and order form (PDF, 88KB)

Why have Seeing and hearing the child and Children’s voices been developed?

Parental substance misuse causes serious harm to children at every age from conception to adulthood, yet their needs have often remained unseen and unmet. This was one of the key messages in Hidden Harm (Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, 2003). Three years on, the Advisory Council advocated large-scale training to equip mainstream children’s and adult services to identify and respond appropriately to the needs of children living with parents who misuse substances.

Seeing and hearing the child and Children’s voices seek to address this training need.

Who are Seeing and hearing the child and Children’s voices for?

The resources have been produced for a multi-agency audience but can also be used to complement materials used in single-agency safeguarding training. They will meet the needs of a range of professionals across children’s social care, health and education, as well as those engaged in adult services where substance misuse is an issue.

Seeing and hearing the child

Seeing and hearing the child is a flexible training resource designed to equip those who work in mainstream children’s and adult services to identify and respond appropriately to the needs of children living with parents who misuse substances.

The CD contains:

three categories of training: Awareness, Assessment and Treatment
a selection of 38 exercises for face-to-face training with a range of audiences
task sheets, handouts and PowerPoint slides
references and further reading, links to relevant websites, and a paper on children’s perspectives
low-resolution video clips from Children’s voices .

Children’s voices: living with parental substance misuse

Children’s voices provides video material for use in training to equip those who work in mainstream children’s and adult services to identify and respond appropriately to the needs of children living with parents who misuse substances.

The DVD features:

Children’s voices
Children talk about their experiences of living with parental substance misuse and what helped them.

Scenarios:

Petra, Stephen and Matthew
This is about Petra, a young heroin user, and her partner during her pregnancy and the early days of baby Matthew’s life.
Jo’s story
Jo, still at primary school, talks about her life with younger brother Ben and her parents whose use of alcohol has an impact on all their lives.
Ian’s story
Ian, a young adult who grew up with a father who was a drug dealer, looks back on events and feelings, and forward to the very different life he is making for himself.

Reflections
Following each scenario, practitioners and academics comment on the issues and the ways in which services can support children.

Seeing and hearing the child and Children’s voices were developed as part of a range of projects carried out by five children’s charities - Barnardo’s, The Children’s Society, National Children’s Bureau, NCH and the NSPCC - to build capacity and resources and involve children and young people in addressing drugs misuse. The projects were funded by the Department of Health.