Arguments between parents can be a normal and natural part of family life. However, frequent and poorly resolved conflict, even at a low level, can have a detrimental impact on children’s mental health, academic attainment and future life chances. Parental conflict is twice as likely in families where both parents are unemployed compared to where both are working.
Positive parenting interventions
Historically, positive parenting interventions for economically-disadvantaged families have focused on improving relationships between parents and their children.
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded research by Gordon Harold, Professor of the Psychology of Education and Mental Health at the University of Cambridge. Professor Harold revealed, however, that supporting relationships between parents, regardless of whether they are living together, was more effective at improving outcomes for children, as well as the adults involved.
The research contributed to a shift in national practice and policy towards targeting interparental relationships. Professor Harold informed the design, implementation and evaluation of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) programme. The programme has supported thousands of couples and separated parents to better manage their conflict and, in doing so, improve the mental health outcomes of their children.
About the project
Supporting high-risk, economically disadvantaged families with resources and knowledge that promote positive parenting practices that in turn promote positive outcomes for children has long been a policy goal in the UK and internationally. However, historically, this support has focused on improving nurturant parenting skills, with interventions primarily targeting parent-child relationship dynamics, particularly between mother and child.
Professor Harold explains:
Policy hadn’t kept up with social changes. It prioritised support for traditional nuclear or married families with a ‘better to stay together for the sake of the kids’ view. It didn’t account for single-parent, separated, adoptive and same-sex families.
Professor Harold’s research involved multiple studies across a 20-year period involving thousands of families, and examined how relationship dynamics between parents affect children of all ages.
Professor Harold continues:
Our research demonstrated that persistent conflict between parents – even where this did not involve abusive, controlling, or violent behaviour – could adversely affect children’s mental health and wider outcomes, such as behavioural problems and school attendance. This conflict affected children whether the parents were living together or were genetically related to the children.
Importantly, we found that intervention programmes targeting relationships between parents not only improved outcomes for the adults but had the knock-on effect of improving parent-child relationships for both mothers and fathers as well as children’s mental health.
Comprehensive research review
Building on this research evidence base, Professor Harold was commissioned by DWP and the Early Intervention Foundation (What Works Centre) to assemble a comprehensive review of research. The review focused on the role of interparental relationships for children’s emotional, behavioural, social and academic development.
This led to the design and implementation of the RPC programme, initially as a pilot from 2015 to 2017, and then rolled out across England in 2018. The programme, which integrates family-level intervention support for parents into local services, aimed to reduce levels of discord between parents, marking a shift away from traditional parenting skills-focused interventions.
Professor Harold identified interventions to include in the programme and helped DWP analysts design an evaluation to estimate the effects of those interventions on parental relationships and the mental health of their children.
Impact of the project
The RPC programme builds directly from Professor Harold’s research into the impact of parental conflict on children’s development. The research underpinning the programme has led to change in policy, local authority practice delivery and services, and positions the UK as a leading family support policy pioneer.
Creating a shift in policy
Professor Harold advised on all aspects of the RPC programme design, implementation and service provider engagement, which has received more than £70 million investment from UK government. This new policy area has fundamentally transformed the landscape of early help provision for families across England, shifting the focus to reducing parental conflict.
Since 2018:
- 31 local authorities in England have participated in the RPC programme
- 16,000 practitioners, managers and leaders have attended regional and national communities of practice events
- 4,800 parents from approximately 3,000 families participated in one of eight RPC focused intervention programmes
The research has also gained attention in other government departments, says Elaine Squires, Deputy Director of Income, Families and Disadvantage Analysis at DWP:
Policymakers across Whitehall are now much more convinced of the potential benefit of supporting parents at the level of the interparental relationship and how this can improve medium and long-term outcomes for children and parents.
They are actively seeking to integrate RPC-style support for parents into several government services, including the family courts, to help more separating parents achieve amicable settlements, and to help separated parents who are using the Child Maintenance Service improve their relationships with former partners.
Changing the nature of local authority engagement
Three independently conducted evaluations of the RPC programme concluded that it fundamentally and positively changed local authority engagement with vulnerable families, parents and children in England.
By highlighting the impact of conflict between parents that may not be living together, the research also contributed to a change in eligibility for local authority support from married couples to family units. This included a wider range of eligible families including adoptive parents, separated parents and other family configurations.
A local authority practitioner says:
Learning about and implementing the interventions recommended through the RPC programme has consolidated and improved my wider practice skills and confidence knowing that the research linked to the programme is of such high quality. The benefit to families is already clear in the area that I work.
Benefiting vulnerable families
Professor Harold advised on all phases of the design, implementation and independent evaluation of the RPC programme. The evaluation showed its support of parental relationships, whether living together or separated, significantly improved outcomes for parents and their children.
A mother who took part in the programme says:
My mental health and stress levels have improved enormously! I have learned that by focusing on the sources of conflict between me and my husband, I am more able to manage conflicts with my daughter. Actually, these conflicts are occurring less frequently, she seems happier and a lot less stressed, which also makes me so much happier.
Video credit: ESRC
Video transcript and on-screen captions are available by watching on YouTube.
Find out more
Reducing Parental Conflict programme (GOV.UK).
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