Place2Be has 25 years of experience providing mental health services in schools. They know that the issues children present are strongly affected by how parents cope. While offering one-to-one counselling and listening services for parents, there was an overwhelming demand for more parenting support. To address this demand in a time of reduced resources, Place2Be wanted to explore a digital component for their parenting work. The goal was to create an accessible, affordable, universally available, online offer to complement face-to-face interventions and improve family functioning and child mental health in more families
Challenge
Place2Be faced overwhelming demand for parenting support but had limited resources with which to broaden their reach. The organisation needed to explore how a digital component could build on existing face-to-face services and deliver help nationally. Key unknowns included what parents wanted from online support and whether they would use it.
What we did
The project to develop a digital parenting service for Place2Be involved a phased approach including Discovery, Alpha, Beta, and Delivery.
The Discovery phase began with desk research, including research on Conduct Disorder and initial stakeholder meetings to explore assumptions and existing knowledge. Competitor offerings were also analysed. Key outputs from this phase included a knowledge board, outline behavioural personas, early user stories, and maps of existing services.
Our initial user research involved user workshops with exercises such as journey mapping to identify pain points, and semi-structured interviews to gain nuanced understanding of parents’ lives. A midpoint review was held with stakeholders to consider our findings. Outputs included validated personas, user journey maps with pain points, and roughly prioritised user stories.
In an Alpha phase, two prototypes were tested: a chatbot and an interactive web app focusing on finding advice on 'meltdowns'. Video content was also tested. The goals were to understand parents’ preferences, explore the strength-based/non-shaming tone, tailor advice, and test language.
Key insights from usability testing included a strong preference for the interactive web app over the chatbot. Parents found open text boxes difficult due to language barriers and mental load, preferring tapping buttons. They did not always use the same terminology for behaviours like 'meltdowns', and there was value in reassuring parents the tool was built for and with people like them. While valuing talking to a human, parents appreciated static content if it was perceived as strength-based and non-shaming. Parents wanted choice in the content they consumed, and disliked being forced down a path. Frustrations with the chatbot included expecting human-like responses and finding it hard to talk to a robot.
Breaking down text into bite-size pieces was appreciated. Categorisation of topics was found to be difficult by parents, leading to a recommendation to potentially remove strict categorisation of resources. Videos were liked, but animation was preferred over footage of real people - parents found it easier to identify with an animated character than a specific human who might not be like them.
Parents liked being able to ask specific questions, but were reluctant to admit when they didn't know something. Content perceived as contrary to their parenting or suggesting they were doing things wrong acted as a shaming trigger. Content suggesting actions they felt incapable of doing also caused frustration.
This in depth research informed the subsequent Beta, and Delivery phases, which involved designing, building and refining the digital solution. The resulting product, Parenting Smart, is an online resource designed to present parenting advice in an easily digestible format to help parents when they have a moment to spare.
"I have loved working with you and the team on Parenting Smart Harry Harrold. And always hugely appreciated your ability to make digital technology concepts sound so accessible!" - Cecilia Corbetta, Head of Parenting, Place2Be
Result
The project led to the development of Parenting Smart. It’s an online space where parents can learn more about parenting in a quiet moment outside the school gate or elsewhere. This digital programme is based on Place2Be’s Personalised Individual Parent Training (PIPT) intervention, and was created using funding from the Nominet Trust.
The course has been used in Place2Be's partner schools, with evaluation showing improvements in all questions of the Brief Parental Self Efficacy scale. The site itself attracted over 1000 users a month during its first 3 months, and has held steady at 750 users a month 5 years later without any significant promotional activity.
A Net Promoter score of ‘41% - Great’