Cross Parliamentary Debate

This month we met with Parliament where our CEO Julie Furney, known for her significant contributions to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder awareness, support and advocacy, alongside fellow keynote speakers Dr Raja Mukherjee MBE leading UK Consultant Psychiatrist and Honorary Professor, lead for diagnosis, and treatment, establishing the first NHS specialist FASD clinic, advising national bodies like NICE and BMA and Professor Penny Cook Professor of Public Health and Associate Dean for Research & Innovation of Salford University; represented the voice of many families and professionals supporting Prenatal Alcohol Exposure / Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder FASD and those children, young people and adults who are no longer with us who deserve a voice.  

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So what have we asked for? 

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1. With up to 75% and some areas 100% of all children in care and leaving it having been exposed to alcohol we need to include FASD in every government policy.

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2. We need to urgently create regional 'FASD emergency response teams', a task force to support complex cases and review serious incidents to ensure professionals work together.

 

 

3. For every child in or leaving care where prenatal alcohol is likely, lets “rule it in”

 

If all professionals commit to consider prenatal alcohol from the beginning of their journey, we can start responsively supporting early intervention.

 

Many professionals tell us, as soon as they ‘consider alcohol’, it can be a gamechanger….. literally a lightbulb moment to support complex cases.

 

Early intervention is critical.

 

 

4. Carers and parents—be they birth, adoptive, foster, or kinship—must be heard and empowered.

 

They are the ‘experts’ the ‘specialist’ in their child’s needs; lets learn from them.

 

Lets be guided by what works and bring this into School. 

 

Lets provide an achievable personalised management plan that is led by carers and parents and is 'FASD informed'.

 

Professionals listening and responding, no dismissal or blame.

 

Everyone working together.

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5. At 16 years of age and over, all those with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure / FASD will be entitled to a specialist FASD Informed mental capacity assessment to comply with the Mental Capacity Act 2005

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Life saving. 

 

6. All carers should have access to tailored personalised training on prenatal alcohol exposure and the wide range of co-occurring needs—practical, bitesize, and peer-led………. not just handouts or weblinks.

 

Empowering self-advocacy.

 

7. The “Team Around the Child” meetings must be robust, responsive, and properly trained in FASD as well as how to run a productive meeting.

 

Meetings should support the family, not exhaust them with bureaucracy and repetition.

 

8. FASD diagnostic and support pathways must be rapidly established and available in every regional area in the UK.

 

Lets use the experience and skills of existing diagnosing Clinicians to cascade confidence to others. Share in good practice.

 

Celebrate peer to peer supervision, and provide tailored resources to diagnose and support.

 

9. FASD training must be embedded in all College and University curriculums in all areas of health, social care, education and criminal law; ensuring the next generation of professionals are highly skilled and prepared.

 

Lets use this cascading good practice in Colleges and Universities to support ‘FASD Champions’, to energise students and clinical expertise.

 

10. Lets get energised ourselves by running prevention campaigns nationally. 

 

Commission adverts, signs on buses, billboards, toilet doors in pubs, posters in every doctors surgery, leaflets in every pub and café.

 

11. We need to mirror international standards in labelling guidance for the alcohol industry to put ‘no alcohol in pregnancy’ signs and health warnings on all bottles, cans and takeaway boxes of alcohol.

 

This is standard practice in many countries internationally. 

 

12. We should celebrate ‘not drinking’ alcohol…. ‘lets make it cool!’

 

Lead change by good example lets hear from health workers, TV personalities and politicians who choose not to drink, promotional health campaigns to be embedded within every social environment to change the culture of the UK drinking patterns.

 

Saving lives.

 

13. Tax breaks to support those that produce 0% alcohol products.

 

14.  For every police officer to record alcohol and drugs at a call out incident where a woman is present, pregnant or not pregnant.

 

Officers to understand why their role is vital to save lives, as this recording of alcohol evidence provides the key to early assessment and understanding of needs.

 

15.  For the Judge in court to be clear on placement of every child, be it adoption or kinship; to ask social workers if they have dug deep for alcohol evidence.

 

16.  Change gathering evidence basic templates in social care to record consideration and evidence of prenatal alcohol exposure on every child's file…. essential.

 

17.  Education in School; the national curriculum currently in every School in the UK supports contraception and good health…… but nothing is included as part of the curriculum for FASD and drinking in pregnancy.

 

Include drinking in pregnancy and FASD in the curriculum.

 

Easy changes…. Live changing differences.

 

18.  Rapid access to ‘specialist mental capacity assessments’ for those with suspected or diagnosed FASD—no more presumptions of capacity that cost lives.

 

19.  Integration and recording of FASD into all government strategies for home office, child protection, SEND, poverty, and early years.

 

 

20.  Responsive independent inquiries where local authorities are made accountable when acting unlawfully.

 

21.  Priority health referrals for children previously looked after with prenatal alcohol exposure.

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22.  All Schools will receive tailored personalised training to support the child they care for; every child with FASD is different, Schools need to understand how to differentiate needs. FASD training to support robust risk assessment, to be responsive in adapting strategies quickly as needs change rapidly.

 

Training a skilled workforce.

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