Impact of Parental Alcohol Misuse on Children's Development

This dissertation examines the crucial role of social workers in supporting children impacted by parental alcohol misuse and its effects on child development within the UK. The study begins with an introduction outlining the background, aims, objectives, rationale, and scope of the research. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive literature review, exploring the social worker's role in supporting children, the interrelationship between this role and parental alcohol misuse, and ways to mitigate the negative impact of alcohol on child development. Chapter 3 applies relevant theories to practical scenarios. The final chapter offers conclusions and recommendations for enhancing social work practices in this area. The dissertation employs a search strategy, including keywords like "social worker," "alcohol misuse," and "child development," and outlines the structure of the study, encompassing the introduction, literature review, application of theory, and conclusions. The research emphasizes the detrimental effects of parental alcohol misuse, including negligence and inconsistent parenting, and explores the various support systems available to children, such as specialist alcohol workers and counselors. The study underscores the importance of social workers in providing guidance, support, and protection to children affected by parental alcohol misuse, emphasizing the need for early intervention and comprehensive support services.

Dissertation

Table of Contents
Topic: “What are the role of a social worker supporting children with parental alcohol misuse
and the effect it has on child development”.....................................................................................3
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................3
Background of study ..............................................................................................................3
Aims and Objectives ..............................................................................................................3
Rationale ................................................................................................................................4
Significance of study .............................................................................................................4
Scope of study .......................................................................................................................5
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................................5
Role of social worker with supporting children.....................................................................5
Interrelationship between social worker role and parental alcohol misuse that impact on
children development.............................................................................................................8
Recommend ways through parental alcohol misuse can be diminish for child development9
CHAPTER 3 APPLICATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICES...................................................10
Application of Theory to practice ........................................................................................10
CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS..................................................14
Conclusion............................................................................................................................14
Recommendations................................................................................................................15
REFLECTION ..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................18

Topic: “What are the role of a social worker supporting children with parental alcohol misuse
and the effect it has on child development”.
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Background of study
Parental alcohol misuse damages and disrupts the lives of kids and families in all regions
of society, spanning all social classes. It bareness lives of entire families and harms the
improvement of children trapped by the influences of their parent's problematic drinking
(Freisthler and Maguire-Jack, 2015). It has specific services for children affected by parental
substances misuse involving alcohol and range of adult provisions involving community and
residential facilities accessed by alcohol misusing parents. Alcohol misusing adults and for
children affected by parental alcohol misuse which is well placed to determine the destructive
impact alcohol misuse can have everyone in the family. Adults social workers are liable to be
working two to three people affected by their own substance utilisation.
Social worker is the job which movement to assess, support and care for public who need
assisting hand. The core of social worker practice as it the set of values and principle. Social
workers try to understand the person in their atmosphere and it broad context of their lives and
acknowledge their interaction among the past, present and future of person. The aims of social
work are to protect the those at risk from harm from themselves or others (Jones, 2014). It is
rarely faced with difficult and competing demand relating to care and control. Social workers
perform day to day with diversity in relations of age group, ethnicity, physical, learning and
mental ability and physical or mental well-being. They are worked in scope of setting involving
homes, community-based offices, hospitals, prisons, utilization of substance, care homes and
increasingly in multi-disciplinary and multi-agency contexts. Social workers support people who
are negatively influenced by their own or someone else's, use the alcohol and other drugs.
Aims and Objectives
Aim:
"To analyze the role of social worker while supporting children with parental alcohol
misuse and the impact it has on child's development - A Case study on UK."
Objectives

 To examine role of social worker in supporting children suffering from parental alcohol
misuse.
 To understand the negative impact of parental alcohol misuse on development of children
within UK.
 To recommend ways through social workers can reduce parental alcohol misuse and
support development of children.
Rationale
The reason of selecting this topic researcher has been liked this topic and this is related to
their field. Through this topic, it is discussed the basic principles of social worker and ethics of
social workers. The reason for selecting this topic is to understand the principles and values of
social worker who is supporting the parental alcohol misuse that impact on development of the
children (Romero-Martínez, Figueiredo and Moya-Albiol, 2014). The reason for choosing this
topic because researcher have lost of adequate data and information about the social workers,
misuse of alcohol and other substance by children which is affected on their development within
the UK. This topic is very interesting which help to attain the result.
Significance of study
The importance of this study is to encourage and supporting for child development who
are misused the alcohol in the UK. It is the significant problem which is highly increased in the
UK. It remains established in millions for households in the UK in which despite policy
development in current years. This study is important for determining the number of children
who are misused the alcohol and its effects on their child development. The government and
social workers have introduced various strategies intended to handle the harm caused by alcohol
and safeguard the welfare of children. Without adequate support, children and their families are
still living with pain and disruption of alcohol misuse (Huang and et.al., 2014). Therefore, social
worker play role significant role for supporting with parental alcohol misuse and the effect it has
on child development in the UK. Social worker helps to child development who has affected by
misuse of alcohol and drugs. Some children accessing the services needs intensive counselling
and ongoing support to deal with fights and disruption caused by their parent's drinking. The
misuse of substances is highly effected on health, physical and emotional development which
can be decreased by individual and group counselling of children and their parents within the
UK.

Scope of study
The scope of study is to determine number of children who have misuse of alcohol and
drugs within the UK. It involves the different aspects such as costs, deadlines, tasks project goals
features. Researcher needs to determine all the aspects for attaining the result of study. In
relation to that, there are up to 1.3 million children living with parents in the UK which misuse
alcohol. The problems are distributed and well-documented, yet children and parents are still
avoided by services. With this study, research will be identified that misuse of substances like
alcohol by children which effected on their health and development in terms of physical or
mental (Jones, 2014). The scope of this study is to support for children and their parents for
ensuring the health and welfare of them. It is the necessary to determine the social workers
practices which support for children with parental alcohol misuse and the effect it has on child
development within the United Kingdom.
Search strategy
The search engine refers to a service which allows internet users to search for the content to help
in completing the task. The search engine used in the dissertation are google scholars, google etc.
The literature search strategy is an organised structure which is used to search for a database.
This strategy combines all the key concepts of the research question in order to achieve correct
and accurate results. The keywords describes the important and crucial words which are found in
the whole research or thesis. The key words used here are social worker, alcohol misuse, child
development etc. The anti oppressive practices are referred to as interdisciplinary approach
which focuses on the abolishment of the socio economic oppression.
Structure of dissertation
the chapter one will outline the brief introduction of the study that is the scope, background,
rationale of the whole study about the role of social worker while supporting children with
parental alcohol misuse and the impact it has on child's development. The next chapter will
outline the views of different authors that is the literature review on the role of the social worker
in supporting the children. Further the next chapter will outline the application of different types
of theories to real practices. This is done by applying some case studies and examples to the
study. In the last chapter it will be concluded that social workers play very important role which
helps to support children in different ways to meet with people at different point that motivate

and support them. In the end there will be some recommendations on how social workers can
enhance their support for children development.
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Role of social worker with supporting children
As per the views of Haj-Yahia, Sokar and Malka, (2019), social worker play vital role to
support the children from the various ways and meet the people in different points to motivate
and support them. They believe that support and motivation change the behaviour of the children
regardless of individual experiences. Seeking support from social workers is not only beneficial
for children but support their parents also to eliminate the misuse of the alcohol which is
influencing behaviour and growth of child. Communication with children of social worker is
done with the motive of providing support to the children by providing right guidance and
providing the treatment and care the substances which leads to misusing the alcohol by the adults
which leads to risk in their families specially in the children. On the other hand, Asquith, Clark
and Waterhouse, (2015), social worker who work for the local authorities, health agency, health
services and the other agencies contact with the family and try to understand the responsibilities
to promote the welfare of the children and to protect them from the danger and risk like the
misuse of the alcohol. These responsibilities include in the children's legislation most recently in
the children act 1995. the national guidance agencies describe and explain how these
responsibilities can be implemented and applied and how these responsibilities should be
discharged. Every children have a rights to be treated well as an individual. And also every child
have the right to get protection from these all form of abuse, neglect and exploitation. All the
social worker considers to consult with the families and parents and professionals that make
important decision about the things that affect the children and their behaviour, schooling,
relationship with others and the lifestyle. Social worker work for them and try to protect them
from all these abusing forms. They work for their schooling get admitted them in school and try
to teach them with different methods that create interest in them to learn and change their
lifestyle by giving guidance and try to understand them positively.
However, Garbarino, (2017) argued that there are many staffs and agencies who work for
the welfare of the children like specialist, alcohol or drug worker or counsellors, social workers,
health visitors, and midwives, nursery staff, class teacher and guidance staff, community

psychiatric nurses, pharmacists all are included to provide the support and motivation to the
children in different ways. The social worker plays an important role and try to balance the life
of the children by motivating them and supporting them to live better lifestyle and protect them
from the parental abusing that negatively impacts them. Beside this, Oppedal and Idsoe, (2015)
stated that the stage of the motivating and supporting the children is very helpful to identify the
positive changes in the people and children and also find the strategies to support them. They
change the bad habits of the children in good habits and try to make difference between them and
them understand the difference that again the children will not repeat it in the future. This
motivation and support start from the conversation with the children and about their substances
and issues and try to get friendly with them in order to understand the behaviour of the children
and according to their interest and needs social worker work upon them and support and protect
them from the abuse nature of the society and parents and try to improve their lifestyle and
educate them.
Alcohol abuse by parents and its impact on child development within UK
According to the point of Rossow and et.al, (2016), misuse of the alcohol by the parents
can create the negative impact on their children. They also adopt the lifestyle and things that
their parents and it leads the children in to the wrong way. Misuse of alcohol by parents means
that parents are unable to look after their children or unable to provide the situational and
practical and emotional support to their children. Excessive consumption of alcohol leads to
negligence due to which parents ignore children and their problem which creates huge impact on
child growth and development. Parents who are alcoholic are inconsistent and vulnerable due to
which individual end up pressurizing children which leads to emotional and physical exhaustion.
False promises by the parents is another reason of changing behaviour of the children as they see
all the elders and parents in same way. However, Velleman and Templeton, (2016) stated that
lack of the time by the parents and energy for their children, poor parenting and chaotic lifestyle
can leave the children alone without any care for them. The scholar outlines the at substance
abuse by parents impact mid set of children and therefore individual starts perceiving this kind of
lifestyle and routine which is disastrous.
As per the point of Jääskeläinen and et.al, (2016), some time parents also blame their
children for the situation and negative behaviour and see them as saviour or the reason to change.
This pressure from the parent side can bring the additional tension for the children and this

slowly becomes the reason of spoiling and breakdowns in the relationship between the child and
parents. Behaviour of the children suddenly changes and add unpredictability and instability in
the home environment. Children become confuse from their role in the family and sometime
look after their parents rather than being looked after by them. Beside this, Murphy, Steele and
Dube, (2016) stated that many children assume the parental responsibilities in the early age as
their parents fail to play all the responsibilities like basic household chores, cleaning, cooking,
relationship and taking care of the younger one. All these responsibilities as caring the younger
one siblings and caring their parents themselves can impact the children's daily lifestyle and put
additional strain on the children and also affect their personal and school achievement and also
influence their behaviour and ability to socialise with others at their own age. According to the
views of Park and Schepp, (2015) misuse of the alcohol can also lead to the parents to spend
more money and amounts of time as they are away from their children. This lead to the high risk
situation for the children as they have to earn money and educate their younger sibling because
of this they have to left their schooling and education. And this stop the proper growth of the
children and affect the future. In the most cases children will be cared by the another parents and
family members, this also serious problem for the children as they do not get the proper and
significant welfare and care. They have the limited contact with their parent and it found the
situation of separation from their parents. This lead to a negative self esteem and they see this
situation as punishment for doing something wrong and feel pressure and responsibility to keep
the family together.
Negative impact of parental alcohol misuse on development of children within UK
As per the views of Haj-Yahia, Sokar and Malka, (2019), impact of parental substance
misuse on children development create major issue. In this consideration, it can be stated that
physical and psychological negatively impact on such aspects determines such as basic care,
ensure safety, emotional warmth, guidance and boundaries, etc. Parental substance misuse and its
effect on children co-exist which is often with variety of other issues. For instance, poverty,
mental health issues and unemployment. These issues are identified which is most often cannot
be disentangled from the substance misuse. On the other hand, Jääskeläinen and et.al, (2016)
argued that another negative impact occur due to situation where parent uses illegal or
prescription drugs or alcohol with extent so that judgement or behaviour is impaired which
considered results in detrimental effects on children and their family. Parental substance misuse

is frequently characterised in research which determine adverse childhood experience. It is a
situation which lead to elevated risk of children and young people experiencing damaging impact
on health.
According to the point of McGovern, Smart and Kaner, (2018), social worker play
important role which enable to develop children and maintain positive family rituals. In this
regard, they work to remove obstacles from the disruptive behaviour of the problem of parents.
Disengage from the disruptive element of family life considered family life which helps to
engage with stabilising people outside the family. Development of confidence outside the family
ascertained with support that determine engage in stabilising activities such as school, clubs,
sports, culture, religion, in which child can develop sense of self and self-esteem. On the other
hand, Horan and Widom, (2015) argued that it is essential to develop children care with
ascertained duty and assessment services respond with new referrals from professional and
members of the public. Social workers are generally helps parents to find services which is
related with child care, apply for benefits. Clinical social workers provides mental health care
that helps to children and families which cope up with several changes in their lives such as
divorce, other issues in family.
Recommend ways through social workers can reduce parental alcohol misuse and support
development of children
As per the views of Horwath and Tarr, (2015), impact of chronic parental alcohol misuse
on parenting and child welfare which is being increasingly recognised with such problems that
feature in significant proportion of families in concern of child care. In this way, social worker
need to gain access to such families with effective engagement which seen as central with
appropriate intervention and assessing children welfare in these situations. Establishing and
sustaining engagement may be particularly problematic so that drug misuse create more impact
on child development. On the other hand, Haj-Yahia, Sokar and Malka, (2019) stated that within
particular society it is essential to collect information on particular children's society services.
Therefore, it leads to collect relevant information volunteering to work and getting involved.
Therefore, it helps to exploitation services and information in which home services and
information must be gather that is involved to deliver appropriate services to children. Social
worker should take participation to increase knowledge and understanding to actively building
development of constraints. They are highly involved in it with children's competence so that

constraints serve as a ceiling with enormous variations in growth, skill, acquisition and
understanding.
According to the views of Murphy, Steele and Dube, (2016), development is also
depended on responsive experience which allow children to grow very far and more quickly in
domain. In this consideration, guided exposure to complex thinking also available which receive
with support. In a particular environment including cultural context exerts that is largely
influence in cognitive and emotional development. Genetic endowment is far responsive which
experience with rapid growth. It is also early years provides an opportunity within the
environment that influence on the physiological of development. On the other hand,
Björkenstam, Dalman and Burström, (2016) stated that education and care in early years
demonstrate improvement in attachment that generally demonstrate social competence with
ability that exploit learning opportunity. Cognitive social and emotional mental health determine
mutually supportive areas of growth in which require active participation in different
consideration. In early learning and later academic achievement are necessary domain that
undertaken in child development in positive aspects. Children who have broad base of
experience increase knowledge which is generally moved towards more rapidly in acquiring
more complex skills.
In opinion of Parolin and Simonelli, (2016), child welfare is related with development of
them with considering proper solution. In this regard, they are generally work with families
where abuse occur and serious mental or physical illness take place. It also helps to parent to find
resources which need to take caring of children so that they can stay home or return to home. In
addition to this, Luckock, Barlow and Brown, (2017) stated that child and family social worker
protect vulnerable children those helps to families in need of assistance. They are generally aids
to parents to find services such as child care, apply benefits, etc. They are generally intervened
when children are in danger of neglect or abuse. In this consideration, some help must be arrange
with adoption, locate foster families and work to get families together. Clinical social workers
provide mental health care to children to cope up with changes in their lives.
On the basis of views of Chung, Siegel and Yin, (2016), social worker should focus on
smile and laugh with your child. Get a conversation copying by them improve sounds and
gestures. Furthermore, in this aspect proper response with sound and interest to child assists in
see child respond in appropriate manner. It assists to tell about child name of certain things so

that they can learn with different tools and techniques. In this consideration, they are generally
forgotten their parent response which are generally related with improvement. On the other hand,
Shin, Lee and Hecht, (2016) argued that ask with child simple questions that are generally based
on child stories, songs and games. In this aspect, pictures are generally helps to increase
awareness of child interest and respond child attempt to talk and show different things. Parent
those are not provides love and not affection with child are generally impacted. Therefore, it is
major role of social workers to provide them love and affection helps to create more bonding.
CHAPTER 3 APPLICATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICES
Application of Theory to practice
The family is the primary source of nutring, socialisation and attachment. Each and every
members is highly as well significantly effected by a person misusing substances. Due to an
individual misusing the substances whole family including children have to face various issues
such as unmet development, financial problems, legal issues, emotional distress, violence etc.
There are number of cases related to the domestic abuse as well as mental health
problems. Drinking of alcohol by parents have direct as well as significant effect on health and
development of children. Substance Misuse by parents have adverse effect on the development
of child. Some risk factor which is associated with drinking of alcohol by parents is high threat
of negligence, domestic abuse, mental difficulties etc. As the concentration of the parents is
mainly on obtaining alcohol or drugs (Kaye, Davenport and Perkins, 2018). The capacity of
parent to retain control on their children is impaired by the adverse effect of alcohol, this is the
main reason because of which parents doest not have much potential to pay attention on basic
requirements of their children. Such types of issues can also have negative effect on health of
children. It can also have adverse influence on the mental as well as physical condition of
children. Parents by adopting the bad habit put their children at high risk of sexual abuse. There
are many proof which shows that high level of parents dependence on drugs can give to the
likelihood of their own children using harmful substances (Finan, Simpson, Schulz and et.al.
2018).
There is a case of Mary Ryan, who was a child whose parents used to misuse substances
because of which She has to bear mental pressure which was created by her friends. Due to
increase in the mental pressure by the society as well as friends, Mary also stated taking the

drugs which further has negative effect on her health (Ma, Grogan-Kaylor and Klein, 2018.).
The different issues which has been faced by Mary as her parents were misusing substance are
emotional stress, impaired attachment, economic hardship etc. All these issues have adverse
effect on her mental as well as physical health. These issues are faced by Mary as she is
emotionally attached with her parents. The attachment theory is based on the assumptions that it
is the relationship which serves as communication between family members.
As per the attachment theory, when child takes birth, they develop primary relationship
with their mother. This hypothesis also states that such relationship of child with mother might
not subsequently serve relationship throughout the life cycle. According to the attachment
theory, children relationship with mother creates a subsystem within big family system. It is a
theory which states that children learn to communicate through their relationship with other
members in a family. During the infant age, children used to communicate by expressing their
feeling through symbols such as crying, clinging etc. The way their parents or care providers
respondents to their needs form the basis of relationship as well as attachment. If children
parents or care provider have positive response towards their needs then children feel secure
attachment (Afzelius, Östman and et.al., 2018).
In context of Mary, as her both parents were engaged in misusing the substances and they
have negative response towards the needs of their child, this factor has lead to the insecure
attachment between Mary and her parents. Due to the insecure attachment with parents Mary has
to face the different issues such as high level of depression, anxiety and failure to thrive. All
these issues has negative effect on Mary physical as well as mental health. In context of case
study of Mary, her parents used to make huge investment of money on treatment for getting
recover from effects of substances, theretofore they did not get a time to built their healthy and
secure attachment with their child. The attachment theory also states that quality of attachment
with the parents which has been build during the time of infancy have significant impact on their
potential to built healthy attachment with their children (McGovern, Smart and Kaner, 2018).
It has been demonstrated from the case study that if in case children are exposed to the
substance misuse by their parents, then there is greater risk that those children also have to face
mental as well as Physical problems. There are possibility the children whose parents are
dependent on alcohol can also become addictive to substance misuse.(Daley, Balogh and
Toscaloni, 2018.).