Outcomes of a coaching program for families with multiple problems in the Netherlands: A prospective study

Families who face a multitude of severe and persistent problems in a number of different areas of life are commonly referred to as multi-problem families in Dutch child welfare. Although evidence suggests that short-term crisis interventions can have positive effects in these families, they have up to now not sufficiently succeeded in facilitating sustainable change. Interventions, which offer integrated care over longer periods of time, have been piloted in different European countries, but only few evaluation studies are available yet. In our study we therefore explored an integrated flexible family support program from the Netherlands, called ‘Ten for the Future’ [in Dutch: Tien voor Toekomst]. The research included 122 families over a period of four years and seven months. Analyses on group level and individual case level were carried out. Our results suggest that the intervention is associated with a decrease in family stress. Furthermore, families with lower initial parental stress were found to have a higher chance to end the program significantly earlier. Child behavior problems and family functioning, as perceived by care workers, show less coherent patterns of change. This might be connected to a main focus of family coaches on the direct work with parents alone. We conclude that the care program has potential to decrease family stress and suggest focusing on the further development of a dual key worker approach that offers allocated care for children next to parenting support in families with multiple problems.