INTRODUCTION: This is a summary of a review of the international (English language) evidence regarding the effectiveness of parenting support programmes. In the light of research evidence from recent decades linking various aspects of parenting with outcomes for children, many programmes have sprung up aimed at helping parents to enhance their ability to parent, in the hope that outcomes for children may ultimately improve. At the same time, a body of literature documenting the scientific evaluation of parent support programmes has also accumulated, assessing its effectiveness. The task involved collating, grading, sorting and summarising parenting support evaluation literature (both published and unpublished) in order to delineate what is known about ‘what works’ both in the UK and elsewhere, and to distil key messages for policy makers regarding practice, research and overarching national policy.
AIMS of the REVIEW: The aim of this review was to address a gap in the current literature. We therefore aimed to produce a review covering a wide range of services that go under the banner of ‘parenting support’, combining scientific rigour with practice and policy relevance and accessibility. Programmes were sorted into four categories: ‘what works’, ‘what is promising’, ‘what does not work’, and those in which effectiveness is still ‘not known’. We also aimed to identify gaps in the evidence base and to distil the key messaes for research, policy and practice. The evidence was drawn from the international evaluation literature, and included both quantitative and qualitative evaluations in order to provide a fully rounded picture of effectiveness in terms not only of significant outcomes, but also in relation to programme implementation and delivery.
KEY TERMS and METHODS: When selecting evaluation literature for inclusion, parents were taken to include all those who provide significant care for children in a home or family context, including biological parents, step-parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, grandparents or other relatives. We took parenting support to include any intervention for parents or carers aimed at reducing risks and/or promoting protective factors for their children, in relation to their social, physical and emotional well-being. The eventual selection of evaluation studies and research reviews that formed the basis of the review was made from over two thousand potentially relevant journals, books and reports, both published and ‘grey’. To be included, interventions had to involve parents or parents with their children (from birth to nineteen years), rather than children alone. Qualitative as well as quantitative evaluations were included, but had to be of sufficient methodological robustness in either case to merit inclusion. Generally, quantitative studies that used pre- and post-intervention assessments were included, often with a comparative or controlled design (ie, where people receiving an intervention are compared with those not receiving it). However, because of the large number of areas where no studies of this standard were unearthed, studies with weaker methods but judged to be of some merit were occasionally included, though conclusions are more tentative in these cases. The selected literature was sorted according to the area of actual outcome that was reported by the study (rather than the study’s intended outcomes), for children, parents and families. Each of these three broad outcome areas were then subdivided into narrower outcomes. Within these categories the literature was further sorted into: ‘what works’, ‘what is promising’, ‘what does not work’ and ‘what is unknown’, based on the presence of significant results showing support for programmes from a methodologically robust evaluation.
CONCLUDING REMARKS: Research indicates that there are many families in the community who could benefit from parenting support in one form or another, although attracting parents and engaging them with programmes remains a challenge. Unfortunately, in the UK the burgeoning number of parenting support programmes in recent years has not been matched by a rise in the number of high quality quantitative and qualitative studies carried out to evaluate them. Consequently the evaluation literature only provides us with a partial picture of ‘what works’, and only partial understanding of why some programmes work better than others. Nevertheless, clear messages have emerged, showing that provision of parenting programmes still represents an important pathway to helping parents, especially when combined with local and national policies that address the broader contextual issues that affect parents’ and children’s lives.