In this podcast, Jadwiga Leigh, the founder of New Beginnings, talks to Sylvia (not her real name), a parent she met in 2018 when she had just started New Beginnings. At the time, Sylvia’s children were subject to child protection under the category of neglect and the reason why Sylvia’s social worker thought she would benefit from the New Beginnings' trauma informed programme was because Sylvia had been a victim of domestic abuse for many years. 

Sylvia had also lost her eldest son to suicide. 

In an attempt to numb her pain, Sylvia used illicit substances and although Sylvia openly disclosed she was a cannabis user what she never admitted was that she was also addicted to amphetamine. It was her addiction to amphetamine that ultimately led to her children being accommodated into foster care in 2020. 

In this podcast we explore what it was like for Sylvia to go through the child protection system with a hidden addiction in the hope that we can help other parents, who are in a similar situation, break their silence and get the support that they need. We also wanted to record this podcast in the hope that we might be able to help social workers, and therapeutic practitioners, who are not drug and alcohol workers, better understand what kind of support they may be able to offer a parent who they think may have an addiction.