Grandparents who have taken over the full-time care of their grandchildren because the children's parents are using drugs, feel they are taken for granted by social services, new research has shown.

According to the findings, grandparents in this situation often face major difficulties, including mental health issues, relationship problems and money worries.

The research was conducted by the School of Social Work and Social Policy in Trinity College Dublin (TCD). It found that poor collaboration between child protection and adult addiction services means that many children of drug-using parents and their grandparent carers are missing out on vital supports and services.

Grandparents who took part in the research were very dissatisfied with the level of support they received from both the child protection system and the adult addiction treatment system. They said that they felt they were being taken for granted by social services.

Many held the view that there was poor integration between these two systems, with some claiming that social workers lacked expertise when it came to drug problems. As a result, they tried to separate the drug issues from the childcare issues, instead of dealing with them together.

The grandparents said that caring full-time for their grandchildren had led to a number of health consequences, including, constant exhaustion, sleep deprivation and symptoms of depression.

Many also experienced financial problems as a result, but found it very difficult to seek financial help from State support services because of the amount of bureaucracy.

Many also experienced major disruption to their work lives, social lives and relationships. In particular, there tended to be a lot of conflict between the grandparents and the birth parents.

The research also found that some of the children involved had emotional and behavioural problems, such as aggression and low moods. Furthermore, some were showing major delays in achieving age-appropriate skills. This meant that the grandparents had to spend a lot of time attending various medical, psychological and educational appointments with the children.

According to the research's co-author, Megan O'Leary, a community development worker with the National Family Support Network, grandparent carers ‘are fulfilling a vital role under extremely difficult circumstances'.

"The stresses associated with this caring role are further compounded by support services that are often ambiguous, unclear and inconsistent in their approach to this group. As a result of these factors, the mental health of grandparent carers is frequently compromised," she pointed out.

Meanwhile, according to study co-author, Dr Shane Butler of TCD, while there are obvious advantages for the children being cared for by family members rather than stranger foster parents, this can lead to major stress for the grandparents.

"This distress is exacerbated by poor collaboration between child protection and adult addiction services. This study points to the need for the drafting of a formal protocol governing collaborative work between Tusla (the Child and Family Agency) and the HSE in relation to the needs of the children of drug-dependent parents and grandparent carers.

"Such a protocol, which could be drawn up with the assistance of the National Family Support Network, would reduce the risk of these children falling between these two bureaucratic stools," he commented.

Details of these findings are published in the Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions.