The Landscape of Digital Family Support
I joined Action for Children’s Service Design team for 6 months on secondment from the Civil Service Fast Stream. I was given the brief to improve understanding of the current landscape of digital support services for families, both within and beyond Action for Children.
In this blog I share what I learnt about the current landscape of digital family support.
What does digital family support look like?
I identified six main types of digital family support. The diagram below shows these services mapped according to their potential reach and impact, with some typical user journey routes.
1. Digital front doors and websites
Family support services are typically provided by many different organisations in one area, often with their own websites. All local authorities are required to provide a Family Information Service — an online directory of their children and family services — but these vary in how well they are kept up-to-date and user-friendly.
Opportunity: A single digital platform or ‘landing place’ with information about all the services available can help families to become more self-sufficient in navigating support. A website is often the first interaction a parent has with a support service, therefore, it should be accessible to all and reflect the local context. Website design should be supported by user research and co-designed with local people. Partnering between local organisations helps to embed and integrate a website within children’s services delivery.
Challenge: The main challenges around developing a single digital platform are data control, longevity, and ownership. Too often these result in local authorities attempting to adapt existing systems to build a central digital platform or asking service providers to build their own digital elements. As a result, digital systems are either outdated or disjointed, making it complicated for users to navigate the support on offer.
2. Social media
Social media has the potential to significantly increase the reach of family support. Parenting advice and signposting shared on social media reaches parents passively through a platform which many are already using as part of their daily lives. It’s instant and reactive, allowing family support workers to respond to new situations and share advice with parents immediately to prevent problems before they are encountered.
Opportunity: A strong social media presence can increase awareness of support available in the community and strengthen connections between local delivery partners. It presents another route for users to engage with a service which some find less intimidating and more accessible. Parents can share thoughts and opinions through comments, direct messages, and reactions. This facilitates interactions which wouldn’t have happened via phone or email, providing support workers with more feedback to understand the problems parents are facing.
Challenge: High quality social media management is challenged by a lack of understanding around the time and training needed by staff to manage accounts. It also excludes parents who don’t use social media, which is more common among some groups who are already less likely to engage with support services.
3. Webinars and short courses
During the Covid-19 pandemic, some family support services began offering webinars or short courses on specific topics online. Many have continued to offer these shorter, more targeted, one-to-many style interventions, reflecting a shift in parents’ behaviour and preferences.
Opportunity: Webinars have much higher reach than longer programmes and see increased levels of engagement from some traditionally ‘hard-to-reach’ groups, such as working parents and fathers. They can be a useful tool for informally assessing a family’s level of need; attending a webinar will either help a parent to resolve an issue or highlight that they need more support. Therefore, webinars should include clear signposting to other support available.
Challenge: It’s important to recognise that webinars are not an alternative to longer, evidence-based parenting programmes. They supplement the overall package of support available, providing additional support for those already engaging with a service or sharing information in an easily accessible way for those who might be engaging for the first time.
4. Information, advice and guidance
Online information, advice and guidance can take many forms. Action for Children’s own online parenting support service, Parent Talk, provides trustworthy advice pages, a 1-to-1 chat service with expert parenting coaches and a monthly email newsletter. Other types of online information, advice and guidance include video content, online planning tools, and even podcasts.
Opportunity: Parents can access online information, advice and guidance in their own time. Signposting to these resources can be useful to ensure parents have some support while on waiting lists for more intensive services, to top up support after completion of a parenting programme, and outside office hours for other support services.
Challenge: There is so much information available online that it can be overwhelming and difficult for parents to know what they can trust. Part of the challenge for family support services is to help parents navigate the advice that is already out there by providing clear signposting to trustworthy sites.
5. Self-guided online parenting programmes
Some family support services provide parents with access to online parenting programmes which they can complete in their own time from home. This gives parents more flexibility to complete a parenting programme around other commitments such as childcare and work.
Opportunity: Some family support services offer additional support for parents completing self-guided courses by scheduling regular check-in calls to discuss progress. This has been found to increase completion rates and help parents apply learning to their own family situation.
Challenge: Although the content of self-guided courses is the same as practitioner-led versions, parents miss out on the additional support that family support workers can offer. When a support worker builds a relationship with a parent over the course of parenting programme, they provide extra support through informal chats, tailored signposting, and better safeguarding.
6. Practitioner-led virtual parenting programmes
During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a major shift to digital delivery of parenting programmes. While most practitioners agree that in-person delivery is preferable in most circumstances, many services have continued to offer some programmes online because it helps to reach parents who won’t have access to support otherwise. For parents in rural areas in-person groups aren’t always available and for others in-person groups are inaccessible due to childcare, work, or disability.
Opportunity: Hybrid delivery has also allowed family support workers to deliver programmes online with some in-person sessions to ensure families don’t miss out on the advantages of face-to-face groups, such as building stronger relationships or involving the children.
Challenge: Digital delivery of practitioner-led parenting programmes presents a challenge in keeping fidelity to the original programme design. The evidence base is usually for in-person delivery. Other challenges include safeguarding of families and supporting those with additional needs.
I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has supported this project. I’ve been blown away by the incredible work being done to support families within and beyond Action for Children.
In another blog here, I share my insights into why digital family support is needed and the fundamental principles which underpin all digital family support services.
After three months, I narrowed the project scope to look specifically at digital peer support for parents. I share the findings from this second part of the research in a blog here.
