Level 4 Group Triple P

Level 4 Group Triple P (Triple P—Positive Parenting Program®) is a parenting intervention delivered over eight weeks for parents of children up to 12 years old. It aims to improve outcomes for children and families by enhancing positive parenting through practicing parenting strategies and observing videos and other parents in the group. It consists of four group face to face sessions followed by three one to one phone consultations and one final face to face group session.

In this project, the programme was targeted at parents of nursery children (aged 3 to 4 years) for whom nursery staff and caregivers had concerns around language and communication or children's behavioural, emotional, or social development. Triple P UK trained and accredited nursery staff to deliver the programme to a maximum of 12 parents per setting.

A total of 68 nurseries (59 school-based and nine private, voluntary, or independent) and 564 children and parents participated in this efficacy trial from September 2019 to July 2020. The original aim was to evaluate the programme using a randomised controlled trial design with outcomes looking at the impact of Level 4 Group Triple P on children's expressive language development and behaviour compared to 'business as usual' practice in control settings. An embedded implementation and process evaluation (IPE) was designed to look at factors involved in implementation, including barriers and facilitators.

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, closures of early years settings to most pupils between March and May 2020 and the ongoing impact of social distancing policies in summer 2020, the planned assessment of children's language was not possible. Instead, the IPE was redesigned with an additional focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on participating families, settings, and delivery of the intervention. IPE measures included surveys and semi-structured interviews with nursery staff in treatment and control settings, semi-structured interviews with parents in treatment and control settings, and three standardised parent questionnaires delivered by nursery staff as part of the Triple P programme pre and post parent training. The trial was funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), SHINE, and the Department for Education (DfE) as part of their Home Learning Environment funding round.