A PROGRAMME aimed at helping families dealing with substance misuse is set to be rolled out across Wiltshire.

Wiltshire Community Safety Partnership (WCSP) has commissioned local charity Action on Addiction to deliver more of its M-PACT (Moving Parents and Children Together) programmes in the county.

The charity has run successful pilots of the programme in the county and now hopes to roll the programme out nationally.

WCSP, which is made up of Wiltshire Police, Wiltshire Fire & Rescue, the probation service, the youth offending team and Wiltshire Council, has funded four of the family programmes. The first will begin in East Knoyle, where Action on Addiction is based, this month and then in Devizes in September, Chippenham in October and Salisbury next January.

M-PACT is a highly acclaimed intervention programme which takes a whole family approach, enabling children to talk openly about their experience of living with parental substance misuse.

An independent Social Return on Investment study found the programme is very cost-effective and it also provides additional benefits such as improvement in children’s school attendance and behaviour and in families engaging with local services.