BeST?- The Best Services Trial (BeST?): Effectiveness and Cost-effectiveness of the New Orleans Intervention Model for Infant Mental Health

Children who have experienced abuse and neglect are at increased risk of mental and physical health problems throughout life. This places an enormous burden on individuals, families and society. Regardless of the severity of this abuse and neglect, these negative effects can largely be reversed if children are placed in secure, loving homes early enough in life. Placing children in nurturing foster placements can help them recover rapidly, but it is not known whether it is better for children's long term development to place them with substitute (foster or adoptive) families or return them to birth or extended families. Efforts to improve the mental health of maltreated children in birth families or foster placements have had mixed success and researchers have recommended that far more intensive approaches are required.

The investigators have carried out careful exploratory research, in Glasgow, on an intensive approach, which was developed in the United States. This is was investigators have called this the New Orleans Intervention Model (NIM). NIM offers families who have a child who enters care due to abuse or neglect a structured assessment of family relationships followed by an intensive treatment that aims to improve family functioning and child mental health. If adequate change is achieved a recommendation is made for the child to return home but, if not, the recommendation is for adoption. Preliminary research from the US suggests that NIM might reduce future maltreatment of the child and other children in the family, and improve mental health in middle childhood.

The investigators are currently conducting a study in which, since December 2011, has recruited around two-thirds of all maltreated children aged 0 to 5 years coming into an episode of care in Glasgow. Half of the families who are taking part receive NIM, which is delivered by a multidisciplinary team comprising health and social care professionals. The remaining half of families will receive usual services, which is delivered by social workers. Preliminary findings suggest that NIM is acceptable to parents, foster carers, social workers and legal professionals. Investigators added an additional site, London, as there is a need to test whether NIM is effective, in terms of both clinical outcomes and cost, in the different legal systems across England and Scotland. The plan is to launch NIM teams at these sites in 2016.

The Investigators, therefore, propose a study of NIM involving a continuation of our current Glasgow work and including 1-2 additional sites. This will involve approximately 500 children (396 families) in total across the sites, including those recruited in our current Glasgow internal pilot study. This will determine whether or not NIM is effective in the UK and to follow up Glasgow children for five years to examine longer term effects on mental health.