Victorian Government: Adressing parent concerns early for positive change

Service: Implementation

Our work with the Victorian Government Department of Families, Fairness and Housing

At the request of the Victorian Government Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and in collaboration with early intervention agencies, we developed the Brief Parent Coaching Model – an evidence-informed way of delivering brief, effective, and early support that empowers families.

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About the project

Enabling parents to problem-solve

In 2024, the Victorian Government Department of Families, Fairness and Housing funded us to design and implement a model for practitioners supporting families in early intervention settings, including universal and child and family services.

The brief: enhance practitioner capacity in early intervention settings by offering an innovative approach to supporting parents “early in the life of a problem”.

The vision was to empower parents through short coaching sessions, ultimately providing them with processes and skills to solve future problems and promote positive change.

By building parents’ skills, confidence, and strategies to meet their children’s needs, it equips them with practical processes and problem-solving abilities they can draw on in the future.

What we did

Design grounded in evidence and real-world practice

Working with 10 early intervention services, we designed a bespoke resource – the Brief Parent Coaching Model – for delivering brief, effective, and early support to families.

We reviewed research to help develop the Model, and then facilitated workshops with practitioners and service leaders to integrate real-world expertise with research and theory. A practitioner resource was also created to support the use of the Model, along with parent- and practitioner-facing tools.

Facilitated manager forums to support implementation were key to the success of the Model, along with the delivery of skills-based training and group coaching.

We also embedded feedback mechanisms in early implementation activities (for example, training, surveys and coaching) to further enhance the usefulness of the Model.

Why it’s important

Brief coaching, big impact

The Model is grounded in our evidence-informed coaching approach and enhanced with research and theories from problem-solving therapy and single-session thinking.

With this approach, the practitioner guides the parent through a new way of solving problems, empowering the parent with increased knowledge, skills and confidence they can use to navigate current and future challenges.

Practitioners treat each session as potentially the only session and follow the parent’s lead on what they want out of the session. This encourages them to make the most of every interaction.

Useful for many family life issues that may affect parenting, the Model is an innovative way of supporting parents to navigate emerging issues related to raising children.

Want to know more?

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Find out more about who we've worked with

The Brief Parent Coaching Model was supported by the Victorian Government.