The intersection of substance use with broader public health concerns.
Public Health
Consultation Findings for the BEAD Project
Adfam and Cruse Bereavement Care undertook an exploration of the experiences of families and friends bereaved through drug and/ or alcohol use, with the aim of developing a range of peer support services and targeted information...

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: How Parents Deal with Children Who Use Substances and Perpetrate Abuse
This report has been written by Adfam and Against Violence and Abuse (AVA) and covers the processes and findings of a joint project carried out by the two organisations in 2011/12 on child to parent violence and abuse. It reveals that every...

Real Voices in Volunteering
Adfam published this volunteering toolkit to provide all the information, policy, law and resources needed on volunteering, families and substance use. Volunteers have always played an essential role in the family support and substance use...

Psychometric and Diagnostic Properties of the Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST): Comparing the DAST-20 vs. the DAST-10
ABSTRACT Background: The use of reliable and valid self-report questionnaires to identify drug use disorders (DUD) is a strategy that has shown usefulness for screening. One of the instruments more used for detection is the Drug Abuse...
Synthetic Pot: Not Your Grandfather’s Marijuana
In the early 2000s in Europe and shortly thereafter in the USA, it was reported that ‘legal’ forms of marijuana were being sold under the name K2 and/or Spice. Active ingredients in K2/Spice products were determined to be synthetic...
Medications in Drug Treatment: Tackling the Risks to Children – One Year on
This ‘One Year On’ report expands upon the findings and recommendations of Adfam’s Medications in Drug Treatment: Tackling the risks to children, published in 2014, and further contributes to the debate on reducing the risks to children...

Medications in Drug Treatment – Tackling the Risks to Children
This report examines cases where children have died or come to harm from ingesting Opioid Substitution Treatment (OST) medicines prescribed to help people overcome drug addiction. There have been 17 Serious Case Reviews involving the...

Families, Drugs and Alcohol - Policy and Research since 1984
The past 30 years has seen a huge amount of change in the policy, practice and politics around both families and drug/alcohol (‘substance’) use. Laws, behaviours and public perceptions have all altered substantially. As part of Adfam’s 30th...

Challenging Stigma: Tackling the Prejudice Experienced by Families of Drug and Alcohol Users
Stigma and drug use have been associated for a long time, and in recent years they have been popular topics of debate and the focus of a growing body of research. But in the same way that families have often been absent in other drug policy...

Becoming Visible: The Somali Community and Substance Use in London
In 2006 Adfam was awarded a three year grant by the Department for Communities and Local Government to work with the Somali community around substance use and family support in London. Becoming visible gives an overview of the issues...
