DRUG ADDICT PARENTS RISK LOSING CHILDREN TO CARE IN CRACKDOWN

DRUG addict parents face an increased risk of having their children
taken into care under a new action plan unveiled today by First
Minister Jack McConnell.

Social workers and other professionals will be told that there must
no longer be an assumption that keeping families together is the best
option for youngsters.

There will be action to ensure better communication between agencies.

And social workers and other frontline staff are to be retrained in
child protection.

The moves follow a string of tragedies involving children whose
parents were abusing drugs.

East Lothian toddler Derek Doran died in December last year after he
drank his parents' methadone.

Three-year-old Michael McGarrity was found alone in a flat in Leith
with his mother's dead body in November.

In 2002, 11-week-old Caleb Ness died at the hands of his brain-
damaged father after being released into the care of his drug-addict
mother.

And in January, an 11-year-old girl was treated in hospital for the
effects of heroin after she collapsed at school in Glasgow.

The First Minister today visited the Aberlour project in Edinburgh
with Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson to launch the action plan for
protecting young people who live in drug abusing households.

The project in Niddrie supports addict parents and their youngsters
and also works with pregnant addicts, aiming to ensure children do
not fall into the cycle of drug abuse that snared their parents.

Today's document includes a clear statement that it is the rights of
the child that should be supreme rather than any rights of drug-
abusing parents.

An Executive source: "It has not been that clear up until now that
public services recognise the interests and rights of the child
should come before everything else."

The action plan also identifies several areas for further action in
the coming months:

More effective identification of children at risk, including at the
stage of pregnancy so appropriate support can be offered at the
earliest possible stage;

Ensuring drug users with children undergo a multi-agency assessment,
so decisions can be taken on parental capability and care plans can
be agreed with the possibility of "contracts" between service
providers and parents;

More effective communication between agencies, particularly between
those dealing with adults and children, including the sharing of
information;

To consider how barriers and cultures about confidentiality that act
as an impediment to sharing information can be broken down;

Developing a new national fostering strategy, to help support
fostering more effectively in the future.

Ms Jamieson said agencies would work together to assess the potential
risks to children.

She said: "It's very important that social work, health, the police
and the other agencies involved investigate the circumstances and
make decisions based on the facts as they find them.

"In some instances it may be the case that the right thing to do is
to find an alternative for the children. In other circumstances it
will be the case that families can be supported with the right
resources put in place."

But former health minister Susan Deacon, Labour MSP for Edinburgh
East & Musselburgh, warned against knee-jerk policy changes.

She said: "It is a complex area and public policy has to reflect that."

Up to 60,000 children in Scotland are affected by parental drug use.

At the Scottish Labour spring conference earlier this year, Mr
McConnell announced plans for new legislation to force agencies to
share information in cases involving children of drug addict parents.
He told delegates he was "infuriated" at the repeated failures of
communication highlighted in many of the tragedies.

CAMPAIGNERS have called for an end to "overcrowding" in foster care
homes in Scotland.

The Fostering Network has urged the Scottish Executive to limit the
number of children put into homes to three, in line with the rest of
the UK.

There is currently no limit to the number of children placed in
foster homes in Scotland.

The Executive has said it had no immediate plans to restrict numbers
but would keep the issue under review.

The Fostering Network said statistics showed there were 2600 carers
in Scotland caring for an estimated 3500 foster children on any given
day.

One in every four of these children lives with a family which already
cares for four or more children.

The organisation has warned that, in order to meet Scotland's total
foster needs, an extra 1700 foster families would be needed.

Director of Fostering Network Scotland, Bryan Ritchie, said: "We need
the Executive to implement a limit of three children per foster
family, except for larger sibling groups, as is the case in Northern
Ireland, England and Wales. And secondly, we need more people to step
forward and consider becoming foster carers themselves."