Partnership for Change

Co-production and feasibility randomised controlled trial of an intervention to improve the mental health of children with a social worker

Supporting parenting
August 28, 2025

Partnership for Change

Report

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Summary

In many families where children have a social worker, parents have experienced challenges in their own childhoods or have neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g. attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or autism). These families often experience stress, which can be made worse by money or housing problems. This strains relationships within the family and can lead to child maltreatment and children’s mental health problems.

Interventions that focus on improving the child–parent relationship show promise in preventing child maltreatment, yet they often fail to simultaneously address neurodevelopmental conditions and the impact of poverty. To help fill this gap we commissioned the University of Glasgow to co-produce a new intervention called Infant Parent Support (IPS), delivered by the NSPCC, which aims to improve the mental health of children under the age of 5 whose families currently have a social worker. This work also involved a feasibility randomised controlled trial of the intervention.

Aims

This work was conducted in two phases. The first phase aimed to find out whether it was possible to co-produce, with parent collaborators, a new service that aims to improve the mental health of children with a social worker. Phase two of this work looked at whether it was possible to identify and randomise 30 eligible families across two local authorities, and whether enough of those families can be retained in the study. This phase also aimed to explore the feasibility and acceptability of both the planned outcome measures and the intervention.

Method

Phase one

The IPS intervention was developed through working closely with parents with experience of child and family social work and multi-agency professionals, all with special interests and direct experience of working with Infant Mental Health. Through in-depth questionnaires and focus groups, all stakeholders’ thoughts, feelings, and experiences of co-producing IPS were explored.

Phase two

Families whose children were aged 0–5 years and who had a social worker (children in need) were invited to participate. Twenty-two families were included in the study, with eight being randomly assigned to the IPS intervention and 12 to services as usual. We collected questionnaire data from participants who agreed to participate in the study, and a proportion also took part in an in-depth interview. Data was collected at the start and at the end of participants’ involvement in the trial (3-to-6 months). We also conducted individual and group interviews with members of the research team and practitioners delivering the intervention.

Key Findings

Phase one

Elements of transformational co-production were evident, such as the adaption and modification of existing IPS assessment tools and service/intervention information sheets, and changes to practice such as home visits and local appointments. Evidence of personal growth and change was consistent across reports from stakeholders, including Parent Collaborators and practitioners
Areas for improvement included setting clear expectations of the project’s goals, establishing individuals’ roles and responsibilities within the project, communication between stakeholders, recruitment of parent collaborators from diverse backgrounds (fathers and minoritised groups), and overcoming power dynamics, for example ensuring that parent collaborators felt able to speak out and there was genuine shared decisionmaking
Barriers to better working included resistance from the ethics committee, disparate views on the conceptualisation of co-production, greater training needs, time for developing relationships across multidisciplinary teams, and challenges in recruiting sufficient numbers of parent collaborators.

Phase two

In total, 63% of the target of 30 families were recruited
High workloads and competing demands of social care services meant there were challenges in identifying suitable families into the study, for example with delays in social workers discussing the eligibility of the families with the research team. This information allowed for further refinement of referral pathways into the study for a definitive RCT
Data was successfully collected on parent and child mental health measures and the study demonstrated that data collection for an economic analysis is feasible and acceptable
Data from the in-depth interviews demonstrated that participants had a positive research experience, finding the measures and study procedures acceptable.
Further piloting work is needed around possible modifications in the delivery of some measures, and the removal of others. There was also emergent evidence for the utility of newly developed parent report measures
There were challenges referring appropriate families into the study, relating to the sharing of information between local authorities and IPS and high thresholds of need. Our sample of ‘children in need’ was edging closer towards child protection
Child protection concerns needed to be addressed before IPS could continue to work with families, which had implications for the timescale of the study. Some families no longer met the study criteria and therapeutic work was not possible
Nonetheless, there was also evidence of IPS implementing both poverty-aware practice and neurodiversity awareness throughout the intervention.
There was emerging evidence of changes in the organisation of and access to other specialist services (e.g. adult mental health, third sector organisations), through the successful partnership working between IPS and such services.
Post intervention data from one parent was extremely positive, regarding the strengthsbased and parent-led approach of IPS. Areas of improvement mainly related to frequency and mode of meetings, and delays in accessing services or support once needs had been identified.