Parents as Partners: A U.K. Trial of a U.S. Couples-Based Parenting Intervention For At-Risk Low-Income Families.

Despite the well-established links between couple relationship quality and healthy family functioning, and burgeoning evidence from the international intervention field, there is little or no evidence of the efficacy of couples-based interventions from the United Kingdom (U.K.). This study explored whether the Parents as Partners (PasP) program, a group-based intervention developed in the United States, brought about the same benefits in the U.K. The evaluation is based on 97 couples with children from communities with high levels of need, recruited to PasP because they are at high risk for parent and child psychopathology. Both mothers and fathers completed self-report questionnaires assessing parents' psychological distress, parenting stress, couple relationship quality and conflict, fathers' involvement in child care and, importantly, children's adjustment. Multilevel modeling analysis comparing parents' responses pre- and postintervention not only showed substantial improvements for both parents on multiple measures of couple relationship quality, but also improvements in parent and child psychopathology. Analyses also indicated most substantial benefits for couples displaying poorest functioning at baseline. The findings provide initial evidence for the successful implementation of PasP, an American-origin program, in the U.K., and add support for the concept of the couple relationship as a resource by which to strengthen families.

'Living with Teenagers': feasibility study of a peer-led parenting intervention for socially disadvantaged families with adolescent children.

OBJECTIVE: To develop and test the feasibility of a peer-led parenting intervention for parents of adolescent children. DESIGN: Formative evaluation using a mixed-method cohort design. SETTING: Socially deprived community sites in London, UK. PARTICIPANTS: Parents seeking help with managing behavioural difficulties of an index adolescent child (aged 11-17 years). INTERVENTION: A structured, group-based intervention ('Living with Teenagers') delivered by trained peer facilitators. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: We assessed feasibility in terms of uptake and completion rates (% parents completing ≥5 sessions); social validity (assessed by service satisfaction measure and participant interviews); and potential for impact (assessed by parent-reported measures of adolescent behaviour and mental health, parenting satisfaction, expressed emotion, and disciplinary practices). RESULTS: Participants (n=41) were predominately (79%) from minority ethnic backgrounds and nearly half were lone parents. Most had not previously accessed a structured parenting programme. The completion rate was 71%. Significant changes (p<0.05) were observed in reduced parental concern about adolescent problems, increased parenting satisfaction and less negative expressed emotion. There were non-significant changes in disciplinary practices and adolescent mental health. Participants were highly satisfied with their service experience and endorsed the acceptability of the intervention's content, materials and peer-led format, while suggesting an expanded number of sessions and more skills practice and demonstrations. CONCLUSIONS: Peer-led parenting groups are feasible and potentially effective for supporting parents of adolescents living in socially disadvantaged communities. These findings warrant more rigorous testing under controlled conditions.

Evaluation of a peer led parenting intervention for disruptive behaviour problems in children: community based randomised controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of a peer led parenting intervention delivered to socially disadvantaged families. DESIGN: Randomised controlled trial. SETTING: Schools and children's centres in a socially deprived borough of inner London. PARTICIPANTS: Parental caregivers seeking help with managing the problem behaviours of 116 index children, aged 2-11 years; 59 families were randomised to the intervention and 57 to a waitlist control condition. INTERVENTION: Empowering parents, empowering communities is an eight week (two hours each week), manualised programme delivered to groups of parents by trained peer facilitators from the local community. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Child problems (number and severity), parental stress, and parenting competencies were assessed before and after the intervention using standardised parent reported measures. RESULTS: Significantly greater improvements in positive parenting practices and child problems were observed in the intervention group compared with the waitlist group, with no difference in parental stress between the groups. An intention to treat analysis for the primary outcome measure, the intensity subscale of the Eyberg child behaviour inventory, showed an intervention effect size of 0.38 (95% confidence interval 0.01 to 0.75, P=0.01). The intervention group had high rates of treatment retention (91.5%) and user satisfaction. CONCLUSION: The peer led parenting intervention significantly reduced child behaviour problems and improved parenting competencies. This is a promising method for providing effective and acceptable parenting support to families considered hard to reach by mainstream services. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN01962337.

Innovations in Practice: Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities: A pilot evaluation of a peer-led parenting programme.

BACKGROUND: Efficacious parenting interventions are under-utilised in mainstream services. Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities (EPEC) aims to increase community access to effective parenting support through a peer-led manualised intervention. METHOD: Training outcomes, clinical effectiveness and acceptability of EPEC were evaluated using a pre-post cohort design. Data were collected from trained peer facilitators (n=31) and parenting group participants (n=73). RESULTS: Peer facilitators demonstrated significantly increased knowledge of and confidence in delivering parenting groups. Parents attending groups reported improvements in child behaviour and parenting stress, and high satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: Early evidence suggests that EPEC may be an effective and acceptable service model in socially disadvantaged communities.