The Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) Programme includes a focus on capturing family voice and lived experience in strategy and service design. The rationale for this is that services will work better when they are co-designed with those involved at the heart of them, in this case, the children, young people and parents who may have experienced parental conflict.

Analysis of round 4 of the RPC Planning Tool indicated that local areas are less mature in the Community key element – which includes involving families in service planning – when compared with other key elements, suggesting that local areas have struggled to make progress here.

As a result, Foundations has explored what works well for local leaders in involving families in RPC service planning and how they have overcome challenges. We held four online discussions in January 2024 to gather perspectives from local RPC Leads on their experiences of engaging families in RPC service planning. We then followed up in more detail with local RPC leaders who shared practical examples of overcoming challenges and amplifying enablers. This report summarises what we heard from local areas on how to take this agenda forward.