Around 2.6 million children in the UK are living with a parent whose drinking puts them at risk of neglect, while 705,000 live with dependent drinkers, according to a report by Alcohol Concern and The Children’s Society.
There are no up-to-date national estimates of parental drug abuse. The most recent, from The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ Hidden Harm report from 2003, showed that up to 350,000 children had one or more parents with a serious drug problem.
Despite the sheer size of these figures, services to address the problem vary widely across the country.
"There is no universal provision and no one definitive model," says Vivienne Evans, chief executive of Adfam, a charity working with families affected by drug and alcohol abuse.
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