Family Ties online help: Pilot evaluation of an online intervention to reduce the impact of parental conflict on children.

OBJECTIVES: Despite strong evidence indicating the adverse impact of parental conflict on child well-being, the evidence base regarding effective intervention is generally poor and the needs of children impacted by parental conflict often go unaddressed. Family Ties Online is a short term, low-intensity, manualised intervention delivered remotely for low-risk parents. This paper reports outcomes following an initial pilot of the intervention involving 25 families. DESIGN: A convergent mixed methods design was employed, involving collecting, analysing and merging quantitative and qualitative data. METHODS: The intervention was delivered by a specialist team (charity sector) and two social care teams in London. Around two thirds of the practitioners had no specific expertise in work with parents in conflict. Practitioners took part in a 3-day training programme and had access to supervision. Families completed standardised measures pre- and post-intervention. Three families did not complete the programme. All families were invited to a feedback interview with a research officer. RESULTS: Although children did not participate directly, there were significant improvements in child-reported and parent-reported child outcomes, including overall well-being, emotional and behavioural difficulties, trauma symptoms, and clinical improvement in parental mental health. Qualitative analysis indicated that a focus on the child, improving emotion regulation, avoiding destructive patterns of communication, psychoeducation and involvement of the social network was helpful. CONCLUSIONS: Methodological limitations restrict the extent to which firm conclusions can be drawn from this study. However, the initial results are very promising and warrant further investigation.