CHILDREN ARE FAILED BY DRUGS POLICY

Collapse Of 11 Year Old Sparks Row As It Emerges Sheriff Ruled
Against Request To Place Her In Care

The fierce debate over how best to protect children of drug addicts
intensified yesterday after it emerged that a sheriff had rejected
requests from social workers to place an 11-year-old heroin addict in care.

As blame continued to shift between different agencies, a senior
social work source told The Observer that the drug war's youngest
victims were being failed because the law had shifted too much
towards protecting the rights of parents at the expense of vulnerable children.

He said child welfare officials had asked the courts to remove the
girl, who cannot be named, from her mother for her own protection.

Initially the 11 year old and her seven-year-old sister were placed
with foster parents in Ayrshire. However, at the beginning of January
after an appeal from their mother, a sheriff ruled against social
workers. The children were handed over to a close relative but were
in daily contact with their mother - who has been a chronic heroin
addict for more than a decade - and their father, an addict and
violent alcoholic.

The case came to light after the girl collapsed at school and was
taken to hospital with what was believed to be heroin withdrawal symptoms.

'Social workers are dealing with this every day,' said the source.
'The scale of the problem in parts of Glasgow is terrifying and I
think we have to face up to the fact that there may have been a
tendency to concentrate too much, because of the legislation, on the
rights of the parent.'

Following inquiries into the Orkney and Cleveland child abuse
scandals, the primary statutory duty of social workers was switched
from giving priority to the rights of children to helping parents
bring up their offspring. However, US research suggests that 70 per
cent of children who grow up with drug addicted parents become
addicts themselves.

Last week, First Minister Jack McConnell announced a radical overhaul
of child protection practices, saying he wanted social workers to be
able to remove and place in care more of the estimated 50,000
children in Scotland living with at least one addicted parent.

A spokesman for McConnell said: 'The decision to take a child from a
drug-taking household has to be taken earlier and more often ... if
you leave a child there, the child becomes the problem.'

But experts said they would need a huge injection of resources to
implement such a policy. Most local authorities are in a position to
provide alternative accommodation, such as foster care or residential
placements, for no more than 10 per cent of youngsters living with addicts.