Infant Parent Support (IPS): a multidisciplinary intervention to improve the mental health of children with a social worker - a study protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial with embedded process evaluation

Abstract

Background: In many families where children have a social worker, parents have experienced challenges in their own childhoods or have neurodevelopmental conditions. These families often endure significant stress, which is frequently worsened by financial or housing challenges. This added pressure can strain relationships and increase the risk of child maltreatment, as well as contribute to mental health issues in children. Relationship-focused interventions show promise in preventing child maltreatment, although there are currently no interventions that simultaneously address neurodevelopmental conditions and the impact of poverty. We have co-produced, alongside parent experts-by-experience, local stakeholders, and infant mental health practitioners, a new service called Infant Parent Support (IPS). IPS will i) adopt a relationship-focused approach to comprehensive understanding of family functioning, ii) incorporate child and parent mental health and neurodevelopmental awareness, and iii) ensure a poverty aware approach throughout. The aim of this phase is to investigate the feasibility of a definitive Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) of IPS compared with services-as-usual (SAU). Methods: The study settings are social care services in two local authorities: Glasgow City Council (Scotland) and the London Borough of Bromley (England). Our target population is children on a ‘child in need’ plan (or the Scottish equivalent) and eligible participants are families where i) the infant(s) are aged 0–5 years and ii) the family has an allocated social worker plus a multi-agency support plan. Thirty participants will be identified by social workers and randomised to receive either IPS or SAU. Families randomised to IPS will receive an intensive multidisciplinary attachment-focused assessment that provides a foundation for relationship-focused interventions. IPS will incorporate child and parent mental health and neurodevelopmental awareness and ensure a poverty aware approach throughout. Families randomised to SAU will receive the assessment and support that social care services normally implement. We will utilise a pre-post and 3/6-month follow-up design with embedded mixed-method process evaluation and exploratory economic analysis. The primary objective is to assess if enough families can be recruited, randomised, and retained in the trial such that a full-scale RCT is likely to be feasible. The secondary objectives are to assess the acceptability and feasibility of the planned outcome measures and the IPS intervention to families and professionals. Conclusions: A service like IPS, that uses a relationship-focused approach to child and parent mental health, neurodevelopmental and money/housing problems, has never previously been tested. Therefore, there are several areas of uncertainty that need to be addressed before moving onto a definitive RCT. Trial registration {2a and 2b} Registered in ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT06003582. Co-production and Feasibility RCT of Intervention to Improve the Mental Health of Children with a Social Worker. Registered 22/08/2023. https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT06003582