The research team will identify, collate and analyse relevant policies used in practice, or referred to, by parents/families and practitioners. We define ‘policy’ as “the organised attempt to select goals and methods for governmental action”.
The policy analysis will include national and local strategies/guidance, clinical guidelines published by professional bodies, departmental or organisational strategies, and practice ‘tools’ (such as assessment’ and care planning forms) relating to parental drug use.
This workstream will address specific questions:
1. How do policies, which focus on parental drug use within the family, represent ‘the problem’?
2. What assumptions underpin these problem representations and how have they come about?
3. What are the gaps or limitations in these problem representations, and are there alternatives?
4. How are these problem representations produced, disseminated and defended, and have these been (or could these be) questioned, disrupted and replaced?