TACT welcomes this month’s publication by National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) of a long-needed quality standard for Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
FASD is a group of conditions in a child that results from alcohol exposure during the mother’s pregnancy. With the prevalence of FASD being approximately 25% among children in care, the quality standard is a significant and welcome development. For years FASD has been under-appreciated as a major cause of neurodiversity and a key factor in what can often be seen as children’s ‘challenging’ behaviour.
While TACT supports the quality standard, it is disappointed about the lack of recommendation that the mother’s alcohol usage during pregnancy is recorded on the child’s records. The absence of such information on the child’s medical records (and usually their social services records) often leads to the condition being missed, or not considered, so children end up not getting the support they need.
Our Director of Performance Support, Martin Clarke, has written a blog about TACT’s response to the NICE quality standard and why it is such an important advance in tackling the issue FASD. You can read it here.
