Triple P Family Transitions
Note on provider involvement: This provider has agreed to EIF’s terms of reference, and the assessment has been conducted and published with the full cooperation of the programme provider.
Family Transitions Triple P (FTTP) Level 5 was designed as an intensive intervention programme for parents experiencing difficulties as a consequence of separation or divorce.
The intervention is a parenting programme designed to prevent adverse outcomes for children following parental divorce and can be delivered individually or with a group of parents.
Working with parents, FTTP aims to: (1) improve parents’ personal coping skills in managing transition through separation or divorce; (2) increase parents’ competence and confidence in raising children; (3) reduce parents’ level of emotional distress (including depression, stress, anxiety, anger); (4) improve parents’ communication about co-parenting issues; (5) reduce the use of coercive and punitive methods of disciplining children; (6) improve the parent–child relationship.
Working with children, FTTP aims to: (1) reduce behavioural and emotional problems; (2) prevent the development of serious behavioural and emotional problems in children; (3) change key, targeted risk and protective factors that were identified as influencing children’s post-divorce adjustment and wellbeing.
A component of Triple P Family Transitions seeks to improve children's outcomes by improving the quality of interparental relationships (IPR).
EIF Programme Assessment
Triple P Family Transitions has evidence of a short-term positive impact on child outcomes from at least one rigorous evaluation.
What does the evidence rating mean?
Level 3 indicates evidence of efficacy. This means the programme can be described as evidence-based: it has evidence from at least one rigorously conducted RCT or QED demonstrating a statistically significant positive impact on at least one child outcome.
This programme does not receive a rating of 4 as it has not yet replicated its results in another rigorously conducted study, where at least one study indicates long-term impacts, and at least one uses measures independent of study participants.
A rating of 1 indicates that a programme has a low cost to set up and deliver, compared with other interventions reviewed by EIF. This is equivalent to an estimated unit cost of less than £100.
Child outcomes
According to the best available evidence for this programme's impact, it can achieve the following positive outcomes for children:
Preventing crime, violence and antisocial behaviour
This programme also has evidence of supporting positive outcomes for couples, parents or families that may be relevant to a commissioning decision. Please see About the evidence for more detail.
Triple P Family Transitions
Key programme characteristics
Who is it for?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to the following age-groups:
- Toddlers
- Preschool
- Primary school
- Preadolescents
- Adolescents
How is it delivered?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to implementation through these delivery models:
- Group
Where is it delivered?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to its implementation in these settings:
- Community centre
The programme may also be delivered in these settings:
- Home
- Children's centre or early-years setting
- Out-patient health setting
How is it targeted?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to its implementation as:
- Targeted selective
Where has it been implemented?
Australia, Canada, England, Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland
UK provision
This programme has been implemented in the UK.
UK evaluation
This programme’s best evidence does not include evaluation conducted in the UK.
Spotlight sets
EIF includes this programme in the following Spotlight sets:
- Improving interparental relationships
- Parenting programmes with violence reduction outcomes
Triple P Family Transitions
About the programme
What happens during delivery?
How is it delivered?
- Family Transitions Triple P is delivered in 5 sessions of 2 hours’ duration each by 1 practitioner, to groups of approximately 8 families.
- These 5 sessions are delivered in conjunction with a Level 4 Triple P programme.
What happens during the intervention?
- Family Transitions Triple P focuses on skills to resolve conflicts with former partners and how to cope positively with stress.
- Learning is supported through role play exercises, homework exercises and group discussions involving video-taped examples of effective parenting strategies.
What are the implementation requirements?
Who can deliver it?
- The practitioner who delivers this programme is a Triple practitioner, who can come from a range of professions (e.g. family support worker) with recommended QCF-4/5 level qualifications.
What are the training requirements?
- Practitioners have 37.5 hours of programme training. Booster training of practitioners is not required.
- Practitioners attend 2 days of training and complete a half-day accreditation session. It is recommended they set aside 4-6 hours for quiz and competency preparation before accreditation.
- Practitioners must have completed prerequisite training in a Level 4 Triple P Provider Training Course.
How are the practitioners supervised?
- It is recommended that practitioners are supervised by 1 host agency supervisor (qualified to QCF-7/8 level), with 0 hours of programme training.
- Practitioners learn and rehearse the Peer-Assisted Supervision and Support (PASS) procedure during training, and have a PASS manual and checklist available through the Triple P Provider Network. PASS is a workforce development strategy to assist practitioners in the process of peer support.
What are the systems for maintaining fidelity?
- Training manual
- Supervision
- Accreditation or certification process
- Fidelity monitoring
- Peer-Assisted Supervision and Support (PASS) Networks
- Quality assurance checklist for organisations implementing Triple P
Is there a licensing requirement?
There is no licence required to run this programme.
How does it work? (Theory of Change)
How does it work?
- Family Transitions Triple P is based on the idea that parents often unintentionally perpetuate unwanted child behaviour through ineffective parenting strategies, and that the risk of demonstrating such parenting is increased when parents experience adjustment problems such as divorce.
- Family Transitions Triple P helps parents replace ineffective parenting strategies with effective methods for encouraging positive child behaviour.
- Moreover, Family Transitions Triple P helps parents to improve their personal coping skills and reduce stress, as well as improve co-parenting.
- In the short term, parents learn more effective strategies for managing their child’s behaviour and the child’s behaviour improves.
- In the longer term, parents demonstrate improved mental health and couple relations, and children should have greater self-regulator skills and self-confidence and do better in school.
- It is also expected that children will be less likely to have behavioural problems and/or engage in antisocial behaviour
Intended outcomes
Preventing crime, violence and antisocial behaviour
Contact details
Matt Buttery
Triple P UK
[email protected]
Triple P Family Transitions
About the evidence
Family Transitions Triple P’s best evidence comes from one rigorously conducted RCT.
Study 1
| Citation: | Stallman & Sanders (2014) |
|---|---|
| Design: | RCT |
| Country: | Australia |
| Sample: | 205 families, with children between 2 and 14 years old |
| Timing: | Baseline (T1) and post-test (T2) |
| Child outcomes: |
Reduced problem behaviour
Reduced intensity |
| Other outcomes: | Improved parenting style Reduced parental stress Reduced anger |
| Study rating: | 3 |
Stallman, H.M., & Sanders, M.R. (2014). A randomized controlled trial of Family Transitions Triple P: A group-administered parenting program to minimize the adverse effects of parental divorce on children. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 55(1): 33-48.
Available at:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10502556.2013.862091
Study design and sample
The first study is a rigorously conducted RCT.
This study involved random assignment of families to a treatment (n-138) or waitlist control group (n=67).
This study was conducted in Australia, with a sample of children between the ages of 2 and 14. Participants were parents who had recently ended their relationships and reported concerns about child behaviour, co-parental conflict, or parenting.
Measures
Child behaviour was measured using the Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory (parent report) and Sutter-Eyberg Student Behaviour Inventory-Revised (teacher report). Parent practices were measured using the Parenting Scale (self-report). Co-parental conflict was measured using the Acrimony Scale (self-report). Social support was measured using the Personal Resource Questionnaire (PRQ). Parental depression, anxiety and stress were measured using the Anger Expression Inventory (self-report).
Findings
This study identified statistically significant positive impact on a number of child and parent outcomes. This includes parenting style (over-reactivity, verbosity), parental stress, parental anger, and improved child behaviour and intensity (parent report only).
Published April 2024