Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDACs) were first piloted in London in January 2008. They were introduced to the UK by the well-known District Judge Nicholas Crichton, who sadly passed away in December 2018.
DJ Crichton had been inspired by Family Treatment Courts in California, and wanted to develop a similar problem-solving approach in the UK.
“What is it that family courts are there to do?”, Crichton asked, “Just take away children? Or are we there to provide part of the whole construct of support around families to try to enable children to remain within their families? If we are looking to remove the 8th, 9th or 10th child, the family courts can’t be doing very well by this family”.
Having removed the 14th child from one family, Crichton wanted to find a new way of working which could disrupt the pattern of family courts removing new babies over and over again from the same parents. FDAC was his answer.
FDAC has been running ever since in central London, and slowly started to spread across Greater London and then the UK from 2013. Family Drug and Alcohol Courts offer an alternative approach to ordinary care proceedings. The FDAC judge holds fortnightly court reviews with parents, in addition to the usual court hearings with lawyers present.
A specialist multi-disciplinary FDAC team works closely with the judge and other professionals to provide intensive treatment and support for parents wishing to turn their lives around. The principles underpinning FDAC are shared with other problem-solving courts and there is a firm focus on working positively with parents with a strengths-based focus.
Today, FDAC remains a model committed to breaking the cycle of repeat removals and is proud to work alongside the national Community of Practice supporting parents who have experienced recurrent care proceedings. For further information on the Community of Practice please visit the Research in Practice website.
There has continued to be commitment to the evaluation of the FDAC model since its establishment, with both regional and national reviews being completed. The first independent evaluations of FDAC carried out by Brunel and Lancaster Universities found that FDAC was more successful than ordinary proceedings in helping parents achieve abstinence from drugs and alcohol and thus enabled more children to be reunified with their parents. Research has consistently shared that FDAC provides better outcomes for children and families. For further information on the FDAC research that has take place, please go to our research pages here.
When FDAC was initially established in the UK, the Family Drug and Alcohol Court name reflected the inspiration from the Family Treatment Courts in America, and criteria for referring families. FDAC teams have not had the capacity to be able to work with every family coming into Care Proceedings and teams have identified families with a presenting support need around substance use as one of the factors that could make them eligible for referral. Although the FDAC name identifies a focus on substance use, over the last 18 years, FDAC teams have worked hard to shift the narrative that FDAC only addresses drug and alcohol use. FDAC teams using the model work with families to address all of the family’s presenting support needs including substance use, domestic abuse, mental health, the impact of childhood and intergenerational trauma, offending behaviour, poverty and neglect.
FDAC teams recognise that these factors can not be addressed in isolation and believe families should be supported in a much more systemic way – addressing the root of the difficulties and understanding and working with families in the context of their lived experience, their culture and their communities.
In recent years, discussions have taken place to think about changing the name of the model to more accurately reflect the work that takes place with families. It will be important that whatever the next steps are in this, that the legacy and positive impact that has come with the FDAC name is not lost.