Reducing Parental Conflict: innovative projects delivered to support families in conflict
Find out about the grant-funded innovative projects element of the Reducing Parental Conflict programme.
Applies to England
The Reducing Parental Conflict programme has been running a range of projects to support the development of services and interventions to address inter-parental conflict. This is an overview of each strand.
Challenge Fund
As part of the Reducing Parental Conflict programme, the Challenge Fund was launched to find new ways to engage hard to reach groups through a range of projects. The funding focused on:
- Supporting Diverse Families: Developing products that will encourage parents in conflict with additional pressures (such as Parents of Children with SEND) to seek/receive tailored support from trained practitioners.
- Digital Strand: Developing universal digital products to support parents in conflict which would not require simultaneous support from a practitioner.
Eight projects which are helping families deal with issues and get their lives on track have received a share of the Department for Work and Pensions funding.
As well as local-level interventions, funding has been allocated to two nationwide digital projects which will support parents and practitioners to reduce conflict and protect children.
Further information on each Challenge Fund project:
- CORAM – Art and music
- Aims to test the effectiveness of sessions using qualified Art, Music and Family Therapists running games, tools, language, and narratives to reduce parental conflict. Coram will target families through schools.
2. The Write Time – SEND
- Aims to test ‘Take Charge’, a 6-week programme for parents of SEND children, delivered through an independent SEND secondary school, to develop parents’ relationships.
3. Race Equality Foundation - BAME parents
- Aims to work with a range of voluntary and community partners to deliver support to Black, Asian and minority ethnic parents across England, utilising two evidence-based interventions and creating targeted and representative resources.
4. Youth Engagement Solutions - Young Parents
- Aims to utilise a Motivational Interviewing model of intervention to provide a range of proactive and responsive interventions to young parents/carers, specifically targeting groups that face multiple and intersecting forms of oppression including racism, gender-based inequalities and violence and poverty.
5. Herefordshire Vennture – Rural
- Aims to utilise schools to develop a model to address parental conflict in dispersed, rural populations.
6. Intercom Trust – LGBTQ+
- Aims to provide targeted support to LGBTQ+ Families, in Devon and Cornwall by delivering tailored psycho-educational support and family mediation, a bespoke LGBTQ+ relationship support groupwork programme, and the provision of couples counselling.
7. OnePlusOne
- This proposal is for a new app for separating parents to self-manage the separation process, thereby reducing pressure on the family court system.
8. Relate
- Proposal will develop a toolkit of appropriate self-help tools and service delivery focused on Reducing Parental Conflict, including a chatbot that will be integrated on the Relate website, a free Reducing Parental Conflict ‘toolkit’ for parents and a resource hub for national database of Reducing Parental Conflict resources for professionals.
Find out more about the Challenge Fund.
Children of Alcohol Dependent Parents programme
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Public Health England (PHE) delivered a joint package of support to address the issue of alcohol misuse, which is often a major contributor to parental conflict. This was aimed at improving the outcomes of children of alcohol-dependent parents, ending in March 2021. There were 3 strands to the programme, comprising grant funding for the voluntary sector, an Innovation Fund and a helpline for children of alcoholic parents (DWP was not involved in the management of the latter strand).
Alcohol Voluntary Sector grants
The aim of these grants was to harness the creativity and capacity of the voluntary and community sector to improve support for the health and education outcomes of children of alcohol-dependent parents, and build the evidence base around this. Three projects were initially awarded funding and delivered to 31 October 2020:
- Tavistock Relationship partnered with OnePlusOne and Adfam – provided training and resources to recognise the signs of inter-parental conflict and alcohol dependency, and introduced these to frontline practitioners. An online support tool was also developed for parents and professionals working with affected parents.
- We are with You – provided awareness training in alcohol misuse to frontline professionals to help them support and signpost affected families. We are with You also provided an art-based family therapy programme and a peer group programme for young people aged 11 to 18 affected by parental substance misuse.
- The Children’s Society – undertook a national capacity building programme to improve outcomes for children of alcohol-dependent parents. The development of a comprehensive training programme aimed to increase professional awareness and understanding.
From March 2020, 5 projects have delivered innovative programmes to support those living with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and reduce the number of alcohol-exposed pregnancies to prevent new cases of FASD. The projects are:
- Seashell Trust in partnership with National Organisation for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS) UK – developing resources and training to support children and young people with FASD.
- Adfam in partnership with Tavistock Relationships – developing peer and support groups for the families of children with FASD and experiencing parental conflict.
- Aquarius Action Projects – providing training to professionals and relevant university students in FASD awareness. Providing a one-to-one service for women with a history of substance misuse, who are currently or are likely to become pregnant in the near future.
- FASD Network UK – formalising their existing FASD support programme to facilitate its rollout across newer agencies working with those affected by or at risk of FASD.
- OnePlusOne – targeting at risk parents early, through embedding an intervention in a targeted antenatal pathway and providing training to midwives and family support workers.
Children of Alcohol Dependent Parents Innovation Fund
Read about the 9 projects that received funding through the Children of Alcohol Dependent Parents Innovation Fund.
The evaluation of the Children of Alcohol Dependent Parents programme innovation fund can be found here
Sign up to Knowledge Hub
Sign up to Knowledge Hub to share resources and discuss ideas with others in the parental alcohol and drug use community.
Last updated 24 August 2023 + show all updates
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Updated information about the projects funded through the Reducing Parental Conflict programme.
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Added information about the RPC Challenge Fund projects awarded funding.
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Added link to 'Reducing Parental Conflict Challenge Fund: learning from the first phase'.
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First published.