The vital parenting tasks: development of an integrative framework for working with parents

Background: The Vital Parenting Tasks (VPT) was developed in response to a need being identified (Jäderberg, 2019) for an integrative model to support professionals who work with children and young people, where work with parents is also indicated. A coherent, easy-to- use and flexible framework for assessment, stand-alone treatment, and/or integration into multidisciplinary treatment packages was developed by means of action research. It was researched and developed by the author from a proto-model (Jäderberg & Sarankin, 2013) focusing on parental capacity and the parent-child relationship through the lens of parenting ‘tasks.’

Methods: The proto-model was developed via action research with data collected from four sources: pilot clinicians who tested early stages of the VPT model handbook and protocol for clinical trial, focus groups, and an uncontrolled clinical trial with therapists using the VPT model with parent-child dyads. Methods included thematic analysis of clinician focus groups and the analysis of eight rich case records from the clinical trial. To mitigate and control against the risk of bias due to the author being an inside researcher, regular adjudication and audit were carried out by a Critical Friends Adjudication Group (CFAG). Furthermore, a creative journal was made by the author, with artefacts (paintings, music and film-making) in an attempt to underpin validity, and to reveal motivation for and possible preconceptions in the research.

Results: The resulting parent-child model is child-focused and asserts that there are 20 vital parenting tasks (for example attunement, capacity to play, consistency, non-narcissistic delight, reflexivity, empathy) with a foundation task of the parent to have integrated their own experience of being parented. Clinician and parent participants reported that the VPT supported the enrichment of the parent-child relationship, demystified parenting, highlighted strengths, and bolstered weaknesses. The model’s therapeutic methods include observation, therapeutic letter-writing, home visits, and cross-modal creative tasks, supporting the complexity of dyadic parent-child work. As a proof of concept, the clinical trial of eight parent-child dyads indicated a tentative signal of efficacy for the VPT model. There was an improvement across the cohort of parents of 25%, and 33% for their children with the validated PSYCHLOPS change measure. Furthermore, there was an improvement in parenting capacity, as reported by clinicians, of an average of 23%, using the newly developed Vital Parenting Tasks Assessment (VPTA). Aside from child and adolescent counsellors and psychotherapists, specialists working in adoption, parental alienation, couples work, and non-clinical professionals, such as foster home workers and social workers indicated that the VPT was adaptable to their caseloads. Although the research did not look to identify effectiveness in any particular group, unexpected findings suggested that the VPT may be beneficial for psychosomatic presentations. Products of the study include a handbook for professionals; a postgraduate training course and training for services working with children and parents; two book proposals; a journal paper; several conference presentations; child and adolescent services adoption of VPT model; VPT emotional first aid for parents’ groups; and a proof of concept for the VPT-A (assessment tool).

Conclusions: The VPT was shown to be easy to use and may be beneficial for use in CAP training and for early career clinicians, with potential for more sophisticated use as the clinician matures as well as uses for non-CAP professionals. There have been tentative signals of efficacy in a small number of parent-child dyads including those with psychosomatic presentations. Therefore, there are indications that a larger efficacy study would be worthwhile including a larger study to validate the VPT and the VPTA.