These figures are alarming, but they are not just numbers; they're human beings whose lives can be seriously impacted by their experience. Young people with care experience told the previous Senedd that, for example, some school teachers made it really obvious that they were in care, meaning that they never had a break from their experience of the care system. They told the previous Senedd that they had very little support to help them move on from foster placements and that they lacked the basic skills needed to live independently.
We know that care leavers are underrepresented at universities and are on what Crisis describes as a 'predictable route' into homelessness. According to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, they are approximately four times more likely to have a mental health need compared to children living with their birth families. Overwhelmingly, professionals and academics have made it clear that corporate parenting has not been achieving for care-experienced children and young people.
Parents are being failed too. Research shows that parents who go through care proceedings once are more likely to find themselves in proceedings again with subsequent children. Forty-seven per cent of newborn babies subject to care proceedings in England were born to mothers who had previously had children subject to care proceedings. The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory found that mothers and fathers who are frequently involved in care proceedings are dealing with complex and unresolved trauma, which is compounded by the court experience. The adversarial proceedings, formal language and impersonal process compound anxieties and triggers self-protective behaviours, which negatively impact the relationship between the professional and the family unit. Parents feel that they are not being listened to. As the independent review of children's social care in 2022 found, court proceedings are, by their nature, adversarial and have a high human and economic cost.
Members, it doesn't have to be like this. There is another way: family drug and alcohol courts. How are these different? I want to answer by quoting the words of a parent who had previously had children removed, comparing the FDAC process to the standard process. Of the standard process, she said, 'We felt like we had no voice and that we were powerless, and that we were just being accused of things and that there was no opportunity to defend ourselves.' Speaking of the family drug and alcohol court process, the same parent said, 'It feels like we have the power to actually have our say, get things done, have our side heard, and then they try to work with us to improve things and meet in the middle.'
Unlike standard proceedings, FDAC uses a trauma-informed approach, which includes listening to parents without judgment, focusing on parents' strengths and the resources that they currently have available to them, and allowing flexibility. Parents are given a key worker from the FDAC team and a judge who provides them with support and a problem-solving approach. There is weekly substance misuse testing, which involves the parents, and fortnightly non-lawyer reviews with consistent legal monitoring that creates a forum for judges and professionals to problem solve with the parents, set clear goals and delegate tasks for the following two weeks. Parents have a multidisciplinary team to support them, who help them to gain access to services and agencies. They provide transparent information and set up multiple sessions per week to address the intervention plan.
Clearly, it’s a very different model to the standard process, but how do we get families there? One challenge that arose from the Welsh trial was that the number of referrals was hampered by confusion over the threshold. Professionals were thought to be pre-screening referrals themselves and only referring if parents' substance misuse was particularly severe. Some legal representatives were under the impression that the local authority was responsible for determining which cases met the threshold, while the judge suggested that there was a general lack of awareness and exposure to the model.
That lack of awareness can be overcome when we follow the model used in London, which is that the usual threshold for proceedings applies, meaning that if a family is not selected for the model, they will enter the usual family proceedings court instead, and a family will qualify if they have a history of parental drug or alcohol misuse. So, now that we know what these courts are, I want to show you why the FDACs are a more effective model.
The evaluation of the family drug and alcohol court in Wales found that the number of parents misusing substances decreased from 83 per cent at the start of the process to 54 per cent. The number of parents misusing alcohol, thanks to the proceedings, reduced from 91 per cent to 60 per cent. Not perfect, but a marked improvement. The number of parents recorded as misusing drugs fell from 94 per cent to 51 per cent. Those supported by the experience of family drug and alcohol courts in England and, more recently, the national FDAC impact evaluation, found that a higher proportion of parents stopped misusing drugs or alcohol by the end of the proceedings. The pilot in Wales showed that the number of children in the care of one or both of their parents more than doubled from the start of the proceedings to the end. That is supported, again, by a study in England, which found that 52 per cent of children were returned to their parents, compared to only 13 per cent in the standard process. The family teams almost halved the number of children being placed in local authority care. That's more family units kept as one.
There are other proven benefits too. Unsurprisingly, feedback from parents is overwhelmingly positive. The Bedfordshire team evaluation saw parents describe the process as non-judgmental and inclusive, whilst parents in London described the system as transformative. And here in Wales, a parent who was reunited with their child at the end of the proceedings described the service as a lifesaver and said, 'My life's back on track because of the FDAC team. I can't recommend them enough.' 'I can't recommend them enough'—what a contrast to how parents feel about the standard process.
It is a serious failure that whilst England has 13 of these specialist teams, we don't have a single one in Wales. The current situation goes against recommendation 35 of the 'Justice in Wales for the People of Wales' report. It goes against the recommendation in the evaluation of the Welsh pilot. It goes against the best interests of children, young people and their parents. There is no reason why this injustice cannot be stopped. This is confirmed when also considering the economic case.
The Centre for Justice Innovation and Mutual Ventures' economic analysis shows that, for every £1 spent on FDAC operations, £3 is generated in savings to the taxpayer. A reduction in the cost of children's services needs to be taken extremely seriously, especially when we consider that overspends in Welsh local authorities arising from children's social care last year alone came to nearly £30 million. Bearing in mind the benefit to the taxpayer, the benefit to some of our most vulnerable children and the benefit to some of our most vulnerable parents, I urge the Senedd to back my motion today. Let us together create a care system that builds, not breaks families. Thank you.