Project
Parents as Partners
Funding
£1.7m for this financial year from the Department for Work and Pensions' Relationship Support and Innovation Fund
Background
Parents as Partners is the UK version of a successful US parenting programme developed by University of California, Berkeley psychology professors Philip and Carolyn Cowan.
It was launched here in 2012 by the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships (TCCR) and the charity Family Action with support from the Cowans and funding from the Department for Education.
It has been running in the London boroughs of Lewisham, Southwark, Camden, Hackney, Islington and Westminster, as well as in Manchester.
The programme had been extensively evaluated in the US and the partners have since assessed its effectiveness for UK couples.
Action
Parents as Partners is designed for couples or "co-parents" with at least one child under 11, who are committed to tackling relationship difficulties. They are referred by agencies including social care, mental health services and children's centres, or can self-refer.
Couples are allocated a case worker, who meets them for an assessment. A male and female facilitator interview them together about their relationship with their children and each other, how they share parenting, their difficulties and their hopes for the year ahead. The facilitators also meet separately with parents to assess any risks to the child.
The programme consists of 16 weekly two-hour sessions for around six couples. It covers five strands: parents' individual wellbeing; the couple's relationship; the parent-child relationship; influence of families; and stress and social support. Each session focuses on one of these and includes discussion and exercises such as role play, helping participants improve co-parenting and their relationship.
In two of the sessions, mothers and fathers are divided into separate groups. Children join their fathers from the creche for an hour and the mothers discuss how they can support their partners to play a more active parenting role.
"From week one, parents feel they're not alone," says Family Action group worker Rebecca Staub. "They begin to notice patterns of things happening with other couples, making them more aware of what's been happening in their own relationships."
The case workers support couples through regular meetings and in follow-up sessions after the programme ends. Staub describes it as "the beginning of a journey of awareness" for many. "When we first meet them, they're often struggling with the demands of family life and have very different ideas around parenting," she says. "Often, parents don't realise the impact of their relationship difficulties on their children. This realisation is a real motivation for change."
Parents as Partners is being continued by TCCR and Family Action in the seven original areas alongside four more areas of London and another nothern authority. TCCR will also be training local authority practitioners around the country to deliver it.
Outcome
Internal evaluation shows more than half - 50.7 per cent - of 92 parents who attended London groups between July 2013 and February this year were reporting clinical levels of psychological distress before the programme, according to a questionnaire called the Core Outcome Measure. But almost 48.5 per cent of those no longer met this threshold after the programme. Participants' initial average score of 11.7 reduced to 9.2, below the clinical threshold of 10. Both mothers and fathers increased their scores on the Quality of Marriage Index. For mums, the average score went up from 23.6 to 27.9.
Before the programme, 36 per cent of 68 parents rated their children as displaying emotional and behavioural difficulties in the "abnormal" range of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. This halved to 18 per cent among the 64 parents assessing their children afterwards.
The proportion of parents scoring above the "at risk" score of 12 on the Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory decreased from 36 per cent of 91 parents before the programme, to 25 per cent of 87 parents afterwards.
CHILDREN'S WELLBEING AND SAFETY
Impact Data from Parents as Partners groups in London from July 2013 to February 2015
Children with 'abnormal' emotional and behavioural difficulties
Before - 36%
After - 18%
Parents rated as potentially 'at risk' of abusing their children
Before - 36%
After - 25%
Source: Family Action, Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships
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