It’s 9:30am on a Friday morning and Rachel Fairall is telling me about a baby – a newborn who was brought to her team’s attention a few days post-birth. Both parents were class A substance misusers, and had been taking the baby to unsafe locations.
“The baby temporarily came into the care of the local authority, initially under police protection,” says Fairall, a service manager in Essex county council’s social care team. “When we were able to sit and speak to mum and dad, they accepted that their baby wasn’t safe, that they were using substances, and they agreed for their baby to be accommodated while we continued to work with them.”
