This Social Work Community Podcast episode, in collaboration with Gloucestershire County Council's children services, discusses the family drug and alcohol court (FDAC) model.

FDAC supports parents with substance misuse, mental health, and domestic abuse issues, which make up the majority of referrals to children's services, and provides an alternative to traditional care proceedings.

Service manager Jane Marriott and Reanne Hulett, social worker in the FDAC team, explain FDAC's non-adversarial, therapeutic approach, involving regular court sessions and multi-agency support.

You will also hear from a mother who had previous children taken away but with the help of FDAC was able to be reunified with her youngest child. The mother shares her experience of going through FDAC and having Reanne as her social worker.

The podcast highlights FDAC's purpose and its success in breaking generational cycles and improving parental wellbeing.

To learn more about Gloucestershire County Council's children's service and a potential social work career, then take a look at their employer profile.

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Two practitioners discuss cases that led to them facing intimidation and verbal abuse, undermining their mental health and ultimately causing them to leave their previous roles

Separately, Anne, who was a frontline children’s social worker, decided to leave the profession because she felt unprotected after dealing with a safeguarding case where she experienced verbal abuse, intimidation from the parents and unexplained incidents. She is now a children's home manager.

In this episode of The Social Work Community Podcast, the practitioners share their stories of how incidents that they could not explain left them feeling scared, dismissed and too embarrassed to seek help. They talk about the impact these experiences had on their health and what support should be available to social work practitioners in similar situations.

A complex and sensitive topic

Community Care recognises that these are complex and sensitive issues. We approached a number of organisations for contextual comment in relation to the issues discussed in the episode, but none was able to respond.

This episode reflects the experiences and perspectives of the two practitioners featured, based on cases they encountered in their professional roles. It is not intended to make generalisations about any culture, faith, nationality or community in the UK, nor should it be interpreted as wider comment on any community as a whole.

If you're a social worker who has had similar experiences to Alisha or Anne or you offer support to practitioners who have, get in touch via: communitycare@markallengroup.com

Article from Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/01/fgm-mother-of-three-year-old-first-person-convicted-in-uk

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How do you measure contentment? This is one of the many questions practitioners from Gloucester County Council's (GCC) adult social care team sought to answer in part two of the podcast episode Adult social care - the difference that matters.

The conversation continues after the first episode, where Jo Sutherland, the principal social worker, Merryn Tate, assistant director and strategic lead for short term services, and Jen Simms, integrated social care manager, talk to Sharmeen Ziauddin, one of the editors at Community Care, about their work in adult services.

They share stories from the people they support as well as the ambition behind the Target operating model (TOM) which they refer to in part one.

Read the transcript.

You can find out more about Jo Sutherland and adult social care by following her on LinkedIn. Find out about careers at GCC's adults' services here.

About the Social Work Community Podcast

The Social Work Community Podcast explores the issues that matter to social work practitioners in their working lives. Editors Kirsty Ayakwah and Sharmeen Ziauddin interview experienced and inspiring guests, including frontline social workers who speak from the heart about their jobs, the sector and society.

It was nominated, alongside Community Care Inform’s Learn on the go podcast, in the audio content category at the 2026 Professional Publishers Association Awards.

Click ‘follow’ or ‘subscribe’ on your podcast app so you know when a new episode is published. And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram or on TikTok to keep up-to-date with the latest news and sign up for the Social Work Community to join the conversation on all things social work.

Produced by Sharmeen Ziauddin

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