Mental Health and Wellbeing's Prof Helen Minnis, working jointly with NSPCC's Matt Forde, has received funding to develop an intervention to support families with young children who have a social worker

 Photo of father holding child's hand outdoors

What Works for Children’s Social Care has funded a new project called Partnership for Change.

This will see a team from University of Glasgow, Queen Mary University London and NSPCC work together with parent collaborators to co-develop an intervention to support families whose young children have a social worker.

The first phase of the project will see Parent Collaborators take the lead on the development of an intervention – Child and Parent Support (CAPS) – that will assess children and their parents’ mental health and living circumstances, and offer treatment, support and information matched to those needs.

Phase 2 will be a feasibility RCT (randomised controlled trial) of CAPS, with some of the measures also designed or chosen by the parent collaborators.

Commenting on the work that lies ahead, Prof Helen Minnis – joint principal investigator with Matt Forde at NSPCC – said:

We are very excited about this project which is a truly innovative approach to working in partnership with parents, to develop support that could really make a difference to them, and research which includes meaningful measures of change.

Find out more the work of Prof Helen Minnis and her team in the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Centre 


First published: 19 May 2022