Toxic Miners: A Case Study

The term ‘Toxic Trio’ is often used to describe three parental stressors that can arise in families; these include domestic violence, substance use and mental illness. A child’s holistic development can be affected by the ‘Toxic Trio’ in various ways by ‘exposure during pregnancy, the impact on the child due to witnessing parental stressors and the effect on parenting due to the parental stressors’ (McGovern, 2012). For this assignment substance use will be focused on and the effects it has on children aged 0-12 months regarding their social and emotional development.
It is estimated that there are between ‘250,000 and 350,000 children of problem drug users in the UK’ (Hidden Harm, 2011, p3). Parental substance use involves persistent use of alcohol and/or drugs and can harm children both directly through exposure to the substances and the toxics as well as indirectly through the effect substance use has on parenting (Cuthbert, Rayns, Stanley, 2011). Parental substance use can have long term impacts on the child’s holistic development; however, it is dependent on the type of substance used as well as the amount, length and method of use (McGovern, 2012).
It can be difficult to identify how a child’s development has been affected by substance use as commonly other factors such as poverty or unemployment are present (Russell,
However, these outcomes can be affected as development and behaviour can be influenced by factors alongside substance use such as the quality of the environment the child is raised in (Schuler, Nair, Black, 2002). The environment is an important factor to determine the child’s developmental outcome, however, problems can arise which affect how the child is raised (Ornoy et al,