NEW: The Kinship Care Practice Guide translates the strongest evidence into actionable recommendations. Find out more.
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NEW: The Kinship Care Practice Guide translates the strongest evidence into actionable recommendations. Find out more.
Dorset Council embarked on a project to create a comprehensive measurement pathway for their Reducing Parental Conflict Programme, in response to an audit that highlighted the challenges practitioners face when assessing parental conflict. By collaborating with stakeholders, experts and local services, Dorset successfully developed a pathway that balances ease of use with depth of information. Looking ahead, the council plans to integrate this pathway into their assessment systems, ensuring practitioners have essential measurement tools and resources at their disposal. Ongoing collaboration with training teams and regular progress monitoring will further support implementation.
In December 2022, an audit revealed that practitioners in Dorset lacked formal tools for assessing parental conflict, and as a result of this, reported a lack of confidence in managing families where parental conflict is present. Practitioners also reported facing additional challenges when supporting families with increasingly complex needs.
The audit indicated that it was common for parental conflict not to be detected until it had reached a crisis point when it was more challenging for practitioners to manage. There was a need to ensure practitioners’ plans were accurately targeted and proportionate to families’ needs.
Dorset Council aimed to address these challenges by providing practitioners with tools and resources to:
The project aimed to develop a robust measurement framework to empower practitioners to make informed decisions regarding conflict assessment, and in doing so facilitate the linking of families to appropriate support and relationship interventions to maximise the chance of positive outcomes. The project also sought to enhance data collection on outcomes to support the rationale for having a robust measurement framework. The key objectives were:
Following the audit, Dorset Council have been scoping and exploring assessment tools suitable for their RPC programme. They collaborated with key stakeholders and researchers both in the UK and beyond to assemble a collection of the most useful tools for family support workers when assessing parental conflict. These measurement tools then underwent practical testing with selected workers and families, practitioners would then provide us with feedback about what worked well and what could be improved, one example of this was the request for electronic assessments that would automatically calculate scoring or provide feedback on suggested interventions in response to scores.
In late 2023, Dorset received support from Foundations and Anna Freud, leading to the collaborative development of a proportionate measurement pathway. The aim of the pathway was to provide a concise and simple framework to improve practitioner decision-making and identification of parental conflict while ensuring parents were supported with appropriate resources and interventions.
A period of testing the pathway with practitioners took place, with a focus on: the appropriateness of the tools available; ease of their use; and practitioner understanding of the level of conflict; and any potential impacts on family life and children.
By addressing the initial gaps and continuously refining their approach, Dorset Council is now well positioned to support practitioners in effectively reducing parental conflict. A number of key next steps have been identified by the council’s Children’s Services to:
