Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) training evaluation
CORC and the National Centre for Family Hubs have recently been working with Foundations, the national What Works Centre for Children and Families, to support with evaluation of some of the work they are leading, focusing on reducing parental conflict (RPC) through supporting healthy relationships. One area of focus was helping local leads to understand the impact of their training for specialists and the wider workforce on RPC.
Local areas have been training staff in RPC for the past two years but there has been limited evaluation of how learning has been received by staff and how it is impacting upon their practice. Using the ‘How to evaluate training on reducing parental conflict’ guide, along with other resources from Foundation’s Reducing Parental Conflict online hub, CORC supported local areas to evaluate their training and implement changes based on these findings.
The approaches and resources developed by Foundations, that we used when working with the local areas would prove useful to anyone trying to evaluate the impact of staff training in a systematic and robust way.
One of the most useful resources was the Kirkpatrick model,1 which breaks down training evaluation into four levels of reaction, learning, behaviour and results. This provided a helpful framework alongside the local area’s theory of change to consider the aims of training and formulate clear research questions as a basis for evaluating. The key areas to evaluate were:
Learning:
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whether or not learning has taken place as a result of the training programme and met learning objectives
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have participants gained knowledge, skills and confidence in the areas the training is focused on?
Behaviour:
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are participants applying what they have learned to their role and everyday practice?
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what are the facilitators and barriers to applying this knowledge?
Staff questionnaires, surveys, focus groups, interviews and other administrative data were gathered and it was interesting to see how responses varied across different local areas. Although focus groups can be time consuming, the level of detail given was helpful to local areas in developing their action plans. Insights ranged from examples of good practice which could be shared with staff, how practice was being adapted for different family structures and the need for refresher training.
Using findings from the evaluation, local areas plan to develop their training offer, develop the role of their Relationship Champions and explore system changes to improve the delivery of RPC interventions.
If you’re currently looking to evaluate training and would like support from the CORC team then do get in touch.