Overview 

This is the final report from the evaluation of the Local Grant element of the 2022-2025 Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) programme. To understand the process, experience and outcomes of the Local Grant, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) commissioned IFF Research to conduct an evaluation to contribute to the wider evidence base on what works for families to reduce parental conflict.  

The RPC Local Grant began in April 2022 and was designed to encourage local authorities (LAs) to continue to: integrate RPC-focused practice and organisation into local services for children and families; build the capability of frontline practitioners who support parents and families, and improve the overall RPC support offer for parents.  

The findings in this final report are based on evidence gathered during 6 workshops conducted with LA staff, 10 LA case studies, qualitative interviews conducted with parents, and 50 interviews with referral practitioners. Most of the research was conducted and completed in the first two years of the programme; this report does not therefore reflect RPC activity in the final years of the 2022-2025 programme. 

Research Context 

Evidence shows that when parents are entrenched in conflict that is frequent, intense, and poorly resolved, it is likely to have a negative impact on them and their children. It can impact on children’s early emotional and social development, their educational attainment and later employability – limiting their chances to lead fulfilling, happy lives.  

The first RPC programme ran from 2018 to 2022. This phase included a test of 7 different interventions to estimate their effects on the relationships between participating parents and the mental health of their children, innovative diary research with parents, and a mixed-method, independent evaluation of parents’ experiences of the interventions and delivery of the wider RPC programme.

The findings of this evaluation can be found in three reports. These are: 

• Reducing Parental Conflict programme 2018 to 2022: an evaluation of the effects of interventions 

• Reducing Parental Conflict programme 2018 to 2022: diary research with parents accessing interventions 

• Reducing Parental Conflict programme 2018 to 2022: final evaluation report 

This report continues to contribute to the evidence base, with a greater focus on integrating and delivering RPC within local services. This report is a valuable source of evidence for local authorities to understand the key drivers and challenges concerning RPC. 

Key Findings 

RPC vision and strategy 

• LAs involved in the evaluation were positive about the continuation of the RPC programme and most LAs had integrated RPC within broader family support services. They noted the programme had enabled them to embed support for parental conflict, as well as increase practitioner awareness and confidence to identify it. The programme had also raised awareness amongst parents about the harmful impacts of parental conflict on them and their children. 

Use of RPC Local Grant funding 

• The flexibility of Local Grant funding was valued by LAs in allowing them to adapt RPC activity to the needs of their local area. 

• Most LAs allocated substantial proportions of the grant to training and workforce development to increase the ability to identify and address parental conflict and promote the sustainability of RPC practices. 

Practitioners’ experience of delivering RPC activity 

• Practitioners across the LAs involved in the research largely had a positive experience of delivering RPC. Key enablers of this included having a dedicated RPC lead/coordinator in post; having positive experiences of RPC training and feeling that it was relevant and engaging; and having senior buy-in to the RPC agenda. 

Referral to RPC interventions  

• A variety of referral pathways were used to engage parents in RPC interventions. 

Parents’ experiences of RPC support 

• Parents who accessed RPC support reported positive experiences overall, with many appreciating the support they received in managing conflict and improving communication. 

• Challenges of RPC included long wait times in some LAs, engaging with support around other commitments, and reservations among parents about group support. 

Monitoring and evaluation 

• Capability and ability to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of RPC interventions varied LAs. Many LAs relied on feedback from frontline practitioners and parents to assess effectiveness, as opposed to a robust and systematic approach. 

Outcomes 

• Across the LA case studies, broad buy-in to the RPC programme was achieved, with practitioners incorporating RPC across children’s services. RPC training and resources, like toolkits, boosted practitioner confidence in addressing parental conflict. RPC leads/coordinators were particularly key to embedding RPC and fostering integration. 

• This evaluation found evidence that most of the anticipated outcomes for parents, as outlined in the Theory of Change (ToC), were achieved. There was less evidence around child outcomes than for parents.

Evaluation Approach 

The main objectives of the Local Grant evaluation were to: 

• Assess how much progress had been made by LAs in relation to integrating RPC focused practice and organisation into family services.

• Understand how the LAs spent their funding and how this has varied across England.

• Understand how LAs in different circumstances approached specific challenges and problems in their local areas to further embed RPC and improve their overall support offer for families.

• Evaluate the quality of support for parents who accessed specialist RPC interventions (or support with a significant RPC component) to identify key outcomes and establish if and how the overall RPC support offer changed under the Local Grant. 

The findings in this final report are based on evidence gathered during: 

• Six workshops with local authorities exploring different aspects of RPC capability and delivery to identify key challenges and lessons during Year 1.

• Ten local authorities case studies to explore and understand the decision-making that underpinned local area activity and identify best practice to share with other local authorities. Each case study involved interviews with a variety of local authority staff and secondary analysis of key documents. 

• Qualitative research with parents and practitioners – including parents who received RPC support, parents who were referred to support but did not start an intervention and practitioners. Where possible, follow-up interviews were completed with parents and practitioners to understand the medium-term impact of RPC support.

Referral research involving 50 interviews with frontline practitioners across eight local authorities, to understand the identification, assessment and referral process across local authorities.

Findings Explained 

RPC vision and strategy 

The LAs involved in this evaluation were positive about the continuation of the RPC Programme. They noted that the programme had enabled them to embed support for parental conflict, as well as increase practitioner awareness and confidence to identify it. The programme had also raised awareness amongst parents about the harmful impacts of parental conflict on them and their children. 

In most LAs, the programme was largely integrated within broader family support services, and particularly within Early Help. RPC was also increasingly integrated alongside Family Hubs and the Supporting Families Programme. This integration facilitated a more holistic approach to family support, allowing LAs to address parental conflict as part of the wider set of challenges that families face. 

Many LAs stressed that RPC should not be treated as a stand-alone initiative but should be embedded within existing services to maximise impact. This vision encouraged a shift in focus from short-term interventions to more sustainable, long-term capability-building across the workforce, especially amongst family practitioners, which was critical to ensuring the continuation of parental conflict support beyond the lifespan of the Local Grant. 

Use of RPC Local Grant funding 

The flexibility of Local Grant funding was valued by LAs in allowing them to adapt RPC activity to the needs of their local area. Most LAs allocated substantial proportions of the grant to training and workforce development. This investment aimed to increase frontline practitioners’ ability to identify and address parental conflict and promote the sustainability of RPC practices.  

All ten of the case study LAs had taken the decision to fund a RPC lead/coordinator with Local Grant funding, a decision all strategic leads interviewed described as a key enabler for delivering their RPC activity.  

RPC interventions typically involved one-to-one support, group support, digital apps, webpages, and toolkits, with limited availability of higher cost intensive specialist support. While many of the interventions delivered were evidence-based, some included locally developed interventions that had not yet been formally tested. These locally developed approaches often addressed specific local needs and priorities. 

Practitioners’ experience of delivering RPC activity 

Practitioners across the LAs involved in the research largely had a positive experience of delivering RPC. Key enablers of this included having a dedicated RPC lead/coordinator in post; having positive experiences of RPC training and feeling that it was relevant and engaging; and having senior buy-in to the RPC agenda (so time and resource could be dedicated to implementation and attending training).  

The majority of the LAs involved in the case studies highlighted a lack of resource and staff time to attend RPC training as a challenge. For many LAs, having capacity to deliver RPC training was also difficult, especially for frontline practitioners who already had a high workload. 

Although a key enabler of RPC delivery for some, other LAs said they were still in the early stages of developing partner relationships. Some LAs had struggled to encourage partner organisations to buy into RPC, mainly due to lack of time and high staff turnover. Those with more advanced partnership collaboration also cited these relationships as a way of progressing and embedding their RPC activity. 

Referral to RPC Interventions 

A variety of referral pathways were used to engage parents in RPC interventions, including self-referrals and referrals by health visitors, school staff, and social workers. Key enablers to the referral process were comprehensive and straightforward referral forms; proximity and familiarity between referral and intervention delivery teams; and good relationships between practitioners and the parents they were referring. 

Key barriers to the referral process were difficulties in encouraging take-up of RPC support by both parents, particularly fathers, and long, sometimes complex referral forms which were difficult for some parents to complete. 

Parents’ experience of RPC support 

Parents who accessed RPC support reported positive experiences overall, with many appreciating the support they received in managing conflict and improving communication within their relationships. Positive elements of parents’ RPC support included helpful session content, positive and supportive group sessions, and skilled and knowledgeable practitioners. 

Challenges of RPC included long wait times in some LAs, engaging with support around other commitments, and reservations among parents about group support. Where referred parents did not go on to start their interventions, this was usually because they did not feel that the intervention content would be useful for their situation, and/or that they did not want to receive support in the structure or format that was available.

Monitoring and evaluation 

Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the RPC interventions varied across LAs depending on the resources and systems they had in place. LAs with more advanced data collection tools were better positioned to monitor progress, especially in identifying reductions in parental conflict and improvements in family dynamics. However, the maturity of monitoring and evaluation frameworks differed widely, with some LAs still developing their capacity to measure outcomes systematically. 

Many LAs used feedback from frontline practitioners and parents to assess the effectiveness of their RPC activity. There was a need for better-defined outcome measures and community engagement strategies to ensure robust monitoring of experience and outcomes could be undertaken more systematically.  

Outcomes 

Across the LA case studies, broad buy-in to the RPC programme was achieved, with practitioners incorporating RPC across children’s services. RPC training and resources, like toolkits, boosted practitioner confidence in addressing parental conflict. RPC leads/coordinators were key to embedding RPC and fostering integration. 

This evaluation found evidence that most of the anticipated outcomes for parents, as outlined in the Theory of Change (ToC), had been achieved; this was particularly the case with improved communication and conflict resolution. Increased confidence in addressing relationship issues was also noted, though resilience to stress and health improvements were less common. Stronger outcomes occurred when both parents accessed support, especially amongst intact couples.