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

Context

Care proceedings, which are triggered when there is risk or actual harm to the child, have increased significantly in recent years. These proceedings typically involve parental substance misuse, domestic abuse, and mental health difficulties and frequently result in children being placed with alternative permanent families. Family drug and alcohol courts (FDACs) are an innovative holistic problem-solving approach to care proceedings and research has found that by treating the parental problems that led to the care proceedings during the court case, family reunification rates are higher than in ordinary care proceedings. International evidence confirms the same results. The Department for Education has invested over the last decade in the expansion of FDACs across England and the Head of Family Justice wishes to see an FDAC in every area. The Ministry of Justice is also interested in problem-solving courts and has set up pilots for women offenders, domestic abuse perpetrators and substance misusers. 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.

Aims and objectives

The overarching research question is whether receipt of FDAC is associated with changes in maternal and paternal offending and reoffending. To this end, the 24-month study will investigate whether, compared to parents who go through ordinary care proceedings and service delivery, receipt of FDAC decreases the likelihood of offending, its frequency, type, seriousness, and resultant sanctions. Mediating influences such as gender, previous history of care proceedings, and stability of family reunification after receipt of FDAC will be explored. To address these aims, we will undertake a 24-month data linkage study based on an analysis of secondary data from existing data sources. It will bring together individual parental records from three administrative data sources, FDAC, Cafcass (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) and the PNC (Police National Computer records) to create a longitudinal cohort study, comprising approximately 1700 parents. Demonstrating the potential and feasibility of carrying out research that links and analyses large scale sensitive data, particularly those from courts on vulnerable populations using individual parental data, to create a new longitudinal cohort study dataset is another main aim of the study.

Potential applications and benefits

The proposed study addresses a significant social and economic problem. Parents with involvement in FDAC, ordinary care proceedings, and in the criminal justice system, are the end beneficiaries of this study, since it will generate greater understanding of their needs and ways to meet them. Policy-makers, local authority and police commissioners will gain new evidence to inform decisions about future investment in FDACs. The study will provide the first benchmark of the impact of FDAC on offending, with new insights for practitioners working in FDACs, ordinary care proceedings and criminal courts in England, Wales and in countries which operate family drug treatment courts. The research will be well placed to draw lessons on the potential of the new longitudinal dataset, particularly regarding data availability, coverage, and harmonisation across the family justice and criminal justice systems. The new longitudinal dataset will provide a number of opportunities for reuse- e.g. to undertake a cost/benefit of the FDAC intervention.