FDAC Family Practitioner

Team: Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) Team

Job Family: Supporting - CBG8

Salary: £31,022 - £33,851 per annum 

Contract: Hybrid - Permanent

Hours: 37 hours per week 

Location: You will be expected to attend Highfield House, The Hawthorns, Flitwick, MK45 1FN as often as needed to carry out your role.

Closing Date: 30th April 2026

Interview Date: 12th May 2026

About the team

The Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) is an alternative, more successful form of care proceedings, where parental substance misuse is a concern. It uses a bespoke, problem-solving, trauma informed approach to target individual families’ complex difficulties. Research shows that this model is successful in supporting parents to engage with and stay in substance misuse services leading to more children being able to return home. Where parents do not engage and children cannot return home safely, quicker decisions are made about permanent placements for them. 

The Bedfordshire FDAC works across the three Bedfordshire Local Authorities - Luton, Central Bedfordshire and Bedford. The lead and recruiting Local Authority is Central Bedfordshire Council. The successful applicant will be employed by Central Bedfordshire Council, within the FDAC team and work across Bedfordshire. The FDAC specialist multidisciplinary team is made up of a Team Manager, Clinical Psychologist, Clinical Psychiatrist, Senior Practitioner Social Workers, a Parental Substance Misuse Specialist, a Domestic Abuse Expert, Primary Mental Health Worker and Business Support Officer.

About the role

In this role, you will:

• Contribute to the multidisciplinary assessment, formulation and planning of intervention for FDAC parents.
• Support the FDAC initial assessment process. 
• Arrange and communicate substance screening schedules. 
• Complete substance screening with parents. This involves urine and saliva testing for which you would receive training.
• Read information such as court bundles and GP records, identify and record information relevant to informing assessment.
• Be trained to develop the ability to undertake and write the substance misuse part of the FDAC initial assessment. 
• Support with one-to-one and small group activity, as appropriate to addressing identified need.
• Take a safeguarding and multi-agency approach. 
• Attend court with the FDAC team to support parents, substance screen and to take minutes for the non lawyer reviews.
• Work directly with FDAC parents, providing effective and first-class intervention.
• Access clinical supervision from the FDAC Clinical Psychologist.

Work will be completed with parents in the context of Care proceedings, with assessment and intervention being focused on supporting parents to address the difficulties that led to Care proceedings being issued. This is parent, rather than patient, focused work which is child centred. You will work as part of a team to provide a safe space for parents to address their difficulties, achieve abstinence and become able to focus on their child and address the concerns about their parenting. You would support parents to start on their recovery journey, encouraging them at initial assessment to invest in recovery with open engagement to enable an effective individual intervention plan to be put in place.

You would be part of a specialist team making important and key recommendations for parents and children. Working with parents your role will be to contribute to every child being able to grow up safely and reach their full potential. As a member of a multi-disciplinary team, yours and your colleagues’ practice would be enriched through collaborative support of each other and learning from each other’s specialisms.

The successful applicant for the FDAC Family Practitioner role will have experience of substance recovery work and/or work in Children’s Services. You will be a good team player and be equally capable of individual practice. You will have a driving licence, access to a car during working hours and business insurance.

Join the FDAC team and you’ll enjoy regular working hours, attractive benefits, plus excellent training. This includes specialist courses covering specific areas of interest. Even better, you’ll develop a new level of specialism as you provide a bespoke, problem-solving approach to target individual families’ complex difficulties.