Children growing up in homes marked by parental substance abuse should be entitled to help. This is the belief of the organization TUBA, which every year assists more than 3,000 children and young people from families with addiction issues. While several municipalities across the country are considering TUBA for budget cuts, TUBA is launching a campaign focusing on the inequality in the right to assistance. “Addiction is not just a family matter; it is a societal problem, and we owe it to the children to give them the right to help on an equal footing with their parents,” believes TUBA’s national leader, Kåre Skarsholm.
If you are an adult with an alcohol or drug addiction, you have the right to treatment within 14 days. If you are the child of the same adult, you have no right or guarantee of help. This needs to change, according to Kåre Skarsholm, the national leader of TUBA, which annually has more than 3,000 young people in specialized therapy programs.
“In TUBA, we want to help as many young people in our target group as possible, but we depend on funding from municipalities, among others. When municipal budgets are tight, they often choose to cut areas where they are not legally obligated. This can have serious consequences, both for the young people affected by severe after-effects of their upbringing and for society in the long term,” explains Kåre Skarsholm.
Urgent Need for Help
In Copenhagen, TUBA is at risk of losing an annual grant of 4.1 million DKK, which in 2022 provided assistance to 580 young people. Here, nearly 500 young people are waiting for help. Earlier this year, Helsingør Municipality, Lyngby-Taarbæk Municipality, Slagelse, and Favrskov Municipality terminated their cooperation with TUBA, while TUBA’s department in Odense Municipality was just saved at the last minute.
These cuts are happening despite the fact that many are in the target group, the waiting lists are full, and the need is great.
“The young people’s challenges don’t disappear just because the municipalities decide to cut back. The cuts mean that TUBA will be able to help fewer in the future, and the services for 25-35-year-olds will disappear entirely,” says Kåre Skarsholm, and continues:
“Therefore, I believe there is a need for a long-term, nationwide effort for this target group, so they get a guarantee similar to their parents,” says Kåre Skarsholm.
Social Media Campaign to Highlight the Extent of the Problem
TUBA has already received many inquiries from worried young people on waiting lists or who have previously received help from TUBA. A 24-year-old woman writes:
“I don’t understand why politicians want to cut back in this area. There are so many of us who need a helping hand and proper conversations about being a relative of an addict. TUBA is one of the best options for this. We are on long waiting lists to start a program, which shows that there is a great need for the help that TUBA offers. Is it really necessary to cut back here?”
The campaign is conducted on TUBA’s social media. Here, TUBA continuously shares stories about young people, numbers, and questions into the issue, as well as a podcast with author Sophie Gevind, who wrote the novel “Small Black Letters” about her upbringing with an alcoholic father. TUBA encourages everyone to follow, comment, share, and like.
“Many Danes are affected by this issue in one way or another. We hope this reaches all the way to Copenhagen Municipality – and Christiansborg,” concludes Kåre Skarsholm.
Find more from TUBA (Denmark, November 2023)
“If you are an addict, you are guaranteed treatment.
If you are the child of an addict, you have no right or guarantee of help.
For 25 years, TUBA has been an open door and a free treatment option for children and young people of parents with an addiction.
But now, Copenhagen Municipality wants to cut the funding for TUBA. If we lose our funding, it will mean that TUBA can help far fewer people, and the offer of help for young people between 25 and 35 years will disappear entirely.
This is despite the fact that our waiting lists are full and the need for help is increasing. According to the National Health Authority, 109,000 children under 18 years are currently growing up in a home with alcohol problems.
We don’t have much time to persuade politicians to remove TUBA from their budget cut plans. So we are urgently calling out to preserve TUBA.
TUBA IN NUMBERS
27% have attempted to take their own life
30% of children growing up in homes with abuse develop an addiction themselves
64% have experienced psychological violence at home
The good news is that TUBA’s efforts work
96% say that they received the help they needed
90% have felt better about themselves
92% have become better at handling their problems
PRESERVE TUBA
Addiction is not just a family problem – it’s also a societal problem. We risk losing a group of young people who already grow up with loneliness, shame, and stigmatization close to their skin. It must not be true that as a child of addiction, one cannot get help to have a good life.”
Alcohol Awareness 