randparents are to be given financial support and legal backing to make it easier for them to take over the care of children with parents who are problem drug users, under government plans revealed yesterday. The package includes the government’s intention to dock the welfare benefits of unemployed problem users who fail to make contact with treatment services. Ministers intend to announce more steps linking benefit rights to completing treatment courses.The strategy emphasises what it calls the “intragenerational transmission of harms” involving the 250,000 children who live in families where at least one parent is a problem user. Research suggests that 60% of the children taken into local authority care are in families where there is serious drug abuse.
