Title: Review of the evidence for intensive family service models
Authors: Parenting Research Centre and University of Melbourne
Commissioned by: NSW Department of Family and Community Services
Published: 2015

This review looked at the evidence for interventions that had good evidence for supporting families with complex issues such as substance misuse, mental health problems and exposure to domestic and family violence. We rated interventions for their effectiveness in improving child, parent, family or service system outcomes.

Key findings

We identified 45 interventions with evidence of effectiveness ranging from ‘Emerging’ to ‘Well Supported’. Two of the 45 interventions were rated Well Supported. These were Nurse-Family Partnerships and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Eighteen interventions were rated ‘Supported’ and nine rated ‘Promising’ and 16 rated ‘Emerging’. Most interventions centred on families where the child or young person had been maltreated or was at risk of maltreatment. Nearly all of the interventions aimed to improve child behaviour outcomes and many targeted family functioning, such as relationships between family members.

Learn more

• Read the report (PDF 1.4 MB)
• Appendix 1: Additional information on methodology and findings (PDF 600KB)
• Appendix 2: Intervention details (1.3 MB)
• Read our review of case management models with vulnerable families