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This case study summarises Devon County Council’s work to incorporate the voice of the child into their Reducing Parental Conflict programme. As part of this, Devon introduced child assessment measures into their routine practice with families where parents are taking part in parenting conflict programmes and consent to involving their children in programme evaluation. Devon also hosted practitioner workshops to build confidence among staff in administering questionnaires with children and young people that are designed to capture their views of parental conflict.
Devon County Council work closely with partners from the charity, education, health, and social care sectors as part of a multi-agency approach to their reducing parental conflict work. Earlier in the development of their reducing parental conflict programme, Devon developed a Theory of Change outlining the main intended outcomes they hoped to achieve through their reducing parental conflict programme. Many of the outcomes documented centred on the child feeling listened to and their feelings validated. Consequently, Devon sought to develop a plan to support parents and practitioners to listen to children’s lived experience of parental conflict.
Acknowledging the detrimental impact of parental conflict on children, there was a drive to systematically capture the voice of the child within routine assessments carried out as part of Devon’s reducing parental conflict programme evaluation. Several steps were taken to embed child voice measures:
Devon considered the accessibility of the online forms used for data collection throughout this project, this included ensuring that all child-facing documents were clear and user friendly, both for practitioners to administer and for children and young people to complete.
Designing and testing the online forms took longer than anticipated, as did identifying families who were eligible to take part in project evaluation, which led to some delays in implementation.
Providing workshops for practitioners was essential to secure buy-in. The workshops built confidence in using screening measures with children and obtaining consent from parents, and ensured that families received consistent assessments to measure outcomes. However, practitioners’ availability was a challenge when it came to securing attendance at meetings and workshops, causing delays to implementation
Moving forward, Devon aims to continue collaboration with service leads, practitioners and the data team to achieve the evaluation objectives and better understand the impact of their reducing parental conflict programme on outcomes for children and young people. Devon plans to expand the project’s scope to encompass a wider range of services and include other local authorities, thereby extending its impact and promoting a holistic approach to addressing parental conflict and its effects on children.
