Anger As Cash Axe Shuts Top Drug Rehab Unit For Families

A drug rehabilitation service for women and their children praised by Jack McConnell is to shut after its funding was axed. As one of only three residential centres for female addicts and their families in Scotland, Brenda House has been tackling drug abuse for 18 years.

The First Minister chose the unit last May as the location to launch the Scottish Executive’s report Hidden Harm, setting out plans to help up to 60,000 children affected by parental drug use. But the project held up as a shining example of the work being done with the families of drug addicts will now close within months after Edinburgh City Council decided to withdraw funding.

Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drugs Misuse Research in Glasgow, described the decision as shameful. “Edinburgh, more than any other part of the country, should be aware of the risks to children in addict families. The services we have for addict families are currently not enough. We should be opening more of these services, not closing the ones that we have.”

Brenda House is run by the Aberlour Child Care Trust. The council said it would be replaced by more community-based projects, but critics said that a range of services was needed.

Prof McKeganey said that staff at Brenda House worked with some of the most vulnerable children in Scotland and claimed it was “absolutely essential” that its services continued to be provided. He added: “We now have to ask what will happen to these families. This decision is indefensible. These children are at extreme risk. It beggars belief that Edinburgh City Council are now closing this service.”

City council officials were yesterday unable to provide the details of how much annual funding it had provided to Brenda House.

Addie Stevenson, the chief executive of Aberlour, said: “We regret the closure of Brenda House and are disappointed that this unique service, with its focus on parenting and strengthening families, will not be part of the range of services for children and families.”

Marilyne MacLaren, a long-serving councillor, said: “There are pressures on funding, but you have to ask why this service has been targeted when it has been a fantastic facility in the city.”

Iain Whyte, Tory group leader on the city council, added: “I am in favour of community-based services, but it is clear that different methods work for different people and we need to have a range of services available.”

But Andrew Burns, the council’s executive member for children and families, said there had been a move from residential to community-based services for drug users in recent years.

“For this reason the council has decided to reduce the level of funding for the residential service and plans to work with Aberlour Child Care Trust to look at the potential for developing a new service which will focus on enhanced community provision, providing more integrated outreach services. We believe this type of service will better meet the needs of families in the city.”