Family Partner -Co-development, Implementation and Evaluation of a Child Maltreatment Prevention Intervention

The objective is to assess the adaptability and acceptability of the Family Partner Intervention, and the feasibility of a future randomised controlled trial. Our specific research questions are:

1. What is the adaptability, acceptability, and feasibility of the Family Partner intervention in a Norwegian municipal context?
2. What are the experiences and possible outcomes of the Family Partner intervention?
3. Is the trial design feasible for an RCT expansion?

The investigators will pilot a parallel randomized trial (RCT), allocated to two groups (treatment and control). Families that fit to the target group, will be invited to take part in the study. Each family which fit the inclusion criteria and consent to participate will be randomized with a 1:1 allocation to experimental and control groups. Each Family Partner can serve 5 families at a time, and the Family Partner will serve families from 6-18 months. As families complete the programme, new families will be recruited. Hence, the recruitment and randomization will be an ongoing process. Any changes to methods after pilot trial commencement will be reported along with study results.

In a future RCT, the objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Family Partner Intervention, i.e. whether introducing the intervention would improve the outcome of existing Child Welfare Services. Hence, the trial is a superiority trial, in which the Family Partner Intervention is hypothesized to be superior to existing service provision. The trial is designed according to an intention-to-treat principle, where all consented participants are included in the analyses, independent of their adherence to intervention.