Tony is aged 14 and lives with his mam who is parenting alone. Linda is struggling to cope with her son’s addiction to drugs: Human Growth and Development Assignment, OC, Ireland

Tony is aged 14 and lives with his mam who is parenting alone. Linda is struggling to cope with her son’s addiction to drugs.  While under the influence, Tony would become quite aggressive in the home and has lashed out at his mam on several occasions. Linda says that Tony is verbally abusive towards her on a regular basis.  After one violent outburst, Tony became very upset telling his mam how sad he is that his dad forgot his birthday again.

He explains how conflicted he feels with his dad, as he loves and hates him at the same time.  Linda listens carefully, conveying compassion and empathy, but wonders if Tony needs psychosocial support or counseling.  Tony’s behaviors have increased over the past number of years.  Tony had begun smoking cigarettes with his friends but then moved on to smoking cannabis.

Linda is worried that Tony will begin to use harder drugs if he continues this but when she tries to address this with Tony, he can become abusive towards her.  Tony’s school attendance began to drop when he entered secondary school; he did complete his Junior Certificate exams last year but did not return to school.

Linda also has an eight-year-old boy (Simon).   Linda describes her son Simon as a quiet boy and says that he is afraid of Tony.  Linda said that when Tony begins to become aggressive towards her, she will usually contact her brother and sister-in-law to take Simon for the night so that he is not in the home when Tony becomes heightened.  Social Worker Anne has received a notification from the Gardaí noting their concerns about the family as Gardaí is concerned about the effect that witnessing these violent incidents is having on Simon.

Social worker Anne reviewed the family’s files and established that there had been two previous referrals to the social work team five years ago regarding domestic violence from the children’s father Conor towards Linda.  Linda spoke to Anne about her concerns about Simon having witnessed this domestic violence, as he has begun to ask her questions about ‘the time when daddy used to hit you’.

Anne informed Linda about the support available to her.  Anne described the role of the social care worker who could support Tony and Simon individually in relation to their needs.  Anne also explained the role of a family support practitioner who could offer support to Linda in her parenting as well as accessing her own support for her past experiences.

Linda stated she would be happy to receive this support and gave consent for a referral to be sent. Anne closed the case at this time as Linda had family support to help her when Tony becomes aggressive and has consented to a referral for the family to get access to support.