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.
This project or publication was produced before or during the merger of What Works for Children’s Social Care (WWCSC) and the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF).
Strengthening parent/carer–child interaction and relationships is known to protect children’s mental health. Watch Me Play! (WMP) is an intervention for caregivers with their babies or young children that aims to enhance child development and caregiver–child relationships and promote mental health resilience for babies and children. It aims to do this by promoting individual attention and age-appropriate stimulation and by supporting the caregiver relationship and interaction with their child. WMP involves a parent/carer watching the child play and talking to their child about their play for a period of up to 20 minutes. Some sessions are facilitated by a trained practitioner who joins the parent/carer in watching the child or baby either in-person or online (using secure video conferencing software), and talking to the child about their play, and provides prompts to the parent/carer where necessary.
The primary objective was to assess the feasibility of delivering WMP for babies and children (age 0 to 8 years) referred to early years and children’s services in the UK. To achieve the primary objective, the following were assessed:
This was a non-randomised single group study, including a process evaluation, of WMP delivered remotely via an online video platform in the home of parents/carers with children aged 0 to 8 years referred to early years and children’s services. We proposed to recruit up to 40 families from early years, children’s health services, and some social care, education, or voluntary services. Measures on child and parent/carer outcomes were obtained from the participating parent/carer at baseline and follow-up (three-months (+2/-2 weeks) post-recruitment). Information on the child’s status as in contact with a social worker (current and in the past), and reported developmental delay were collected at baseline only. Participants completed questionnaires via an online survey.
Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted remotely in the context of the process evaluation which aimed to explore the experiences of parents/carers and practitioners who took part in the Watch Me Play! intervention.
Barriers and facilitators to recruitment
Barriers and facilitators to recruitment included timing with research ethics approvals and increased workloads for practitioners, limiting their ability for work with multiple families simultaneously. Retention rates and adherence may have been impacted by the limited time available to complete the sessions due to the need to bring some participants’ data collection windows forward in order to fit data collection into the main study timeline.
Implementation
Practitioners were cautious about which families they approached, targeting those for whom the programme seemed most appropriate rather than adopting a blanket recruitment approach. Additionally, while online sessions offered flexibility, not all parents/carers found them suitable, indicating that a hybrid model of delivery may be more effective. One particular concern was the appropriateness of certain measures for children.
Costs
Cost analysis involved calculating the costs from the provider’s perspective, including training, supervision, and delivery. The total cost included facilitator’s time delivering the sessions, preparing and undertaking administrative duties, and practitioners’ time attending the sessions. The cost of delivering the intervention depended on the number of facilitated sessions and the mode of delivery, with a range of £209 to £418 per child, depending on attendance and session type.
The economic analysis highlighted the varying costs of the WMP intervention depending on delivery mode, supervision requirements, and participant attendance. It also showed that most healthcare resource use was within the NHS framework, with parents/carers generally reporting high HRQL and QALYs.
The study identified a number of recommendations:
You can view the project linked to this publication here:
