Impacts-of-methamphetamine-in-Victoria-Community-Assessment-Penington-Institute

drug and alcohol stuff and the deprivations of it, the effects... but the partner’s use of iceis causing them to break up or causing concerns or threats and other behaviours”Another in the Grampians region noted that:“Couples [use methamphetamine] together... [leading to] increased reports of childprotection. [Before] they hadn’t come to the attention of services. It’s a change in thetrend. They might have had a [substance use] history going back a fair way, but notcome to or had problems and ended up in hospital or with police involved or childprotection involved”Impacts on childrenA number of workers interviewed for the study noted that they were seeing increases in childrenbeing unable to stay at home with parents who were using methamphetamine. This could result fromChild Protection involvement, or through informal care arrangements.Another Gippsland worker noted:“We work with a few grandparents who now have custody of their grandchildren due to ice. Theyhad to face the ‘Ok, this is what I have to do – this person is not going to like me, but my own child I’llhave to make an enemy of to protect my grandchild’... and that’s heartbreaking”A housing worker said that informal care arrangements were more common in her area:“It’s difficult to get Child Protection involved so it’s usually informal...grandparents and siblings.”This worker went on to explain how challenging reunification of children and parents could be whenmethamphetamine was involved:“You’ll have a small percentage where [getting their children back] will be a big focus –and gettingtheir lives together. But, when you come to helping them with all their other issues to ... get the kidsback – they just want the house. They don’t want to look at the other problems. So it doesn’t go anyfurther than that”Family violenceThe issue of family violence in relation to methamphetamine use emerged as a key theme. Ofconcern, was the increase in both the intensity and the incidence of violence, with workers usingterminology such as “unprecedented” and “prolific” levels of methamphetamine use involved in familyviolence. This is reported to have increased over the last two years.An inner Melbourne Emergency Medicine Specialist noted they had anecdotally seen an increase infamily violence incidents related to methamphetamine use by the perpetrator. This was a “sociallycomplex situation”, where the victim would not want to involve police, but needed to be held in safetyin the Emergency Department until business hours, when they could be referred to social workers andcrisis accommodation services.46