FAMILY SERVICES
BRIGHTER FUTURES
B
ridges Family and Carers is a specialist service in Stocktonon-Tees providing support to people who have a loved one with issues with drugs or alcohol. As part of our remit we have a dedicated kinship care worker supporting family members who have children placed with them – these carers maybe grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, or other extended family members( DDN, June, page 12).
Recent research estimates that there are more than 132,000 children in kinship care arrangements in England, and without these kinship carers many of these children would likely be in the care system. A number of children live with family members because of
Britain’ s thousands of kinship carers play a vital but often unacknowledged, and unrewarded, role. A specialist County Durham service has been providing activities to support them and put the children in their care on the path to a far healthier future, says Liam Knowles
parental substance use, and these are the families we support.
Unlike foster care placements, kinship carers often don’ t qualify for payments from government to help care for their families’ children, and many suffer financial hardship. In the past year we’ ve supported around 80 kinship carers directly, with the number of children within these families in the hundreds.
Many kinship carers are retired or unable to work as a result of their own health needs or caring responsibilities. In these circumstances, things that many of us take for granted – such as holidays or days out – are among the first to be sacrificed when the money coming in only covers the‘ essentials’, something that also impacts carers’ ability to provide exercise or activity opportunities for the young people in their care.
We know that the children of people who use substances have increased risk factors for substance use themselves, as well as involvement in the criminal justice system, mental health disorders and issues with engagement in education. This means they can be expected to be in poorer health later in life than their peers – should the young person be in the care system, then these risks increase further.
Through a piece of coproduction with kinship carers we developed a programme to support the young people. Once we had agreed our plan, we applied to Sport England for funding to run the project – and a big thank you to them for funding it.
The Bridges activity programme has helped to support the five ways to wellbeing:
Connect – families experienced a sense of belonging during activities, and were encouraged and supported to connect with other people
Get active – physical activity can help maintain positive mental health, promote restful sleep, and reduce anxiety and stress.
Take notice – group activities focused individuals on enjoying the moment, taking their thoughts away from family problems.
Learn – people taking part in activities learnt new skills and
20 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • SEPTEMBER 2025 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM