Active Communities
Evaluation of Parentline Plus
This Home Office report describes an evaluation of the Parentline Plus (PLP) helpline, a national freephone helpline for parents, aimed at supporting and strengthening families. Conducted between August 2002 and March 2003, The evaluation investigates whether the Home Office funded PLP helpline is an efficient and effective way of providing parents support, and whether it is making a positive impact on families.
Title: Evaluation of Parentline Plus
Author: Research Development and Statistics Directorate
Series: On-line report 33/04
Number of pages: 58
Date published: July 2004
The Parentline Plus helpline was established to offer advice and to refer them to other sources of advice or local support. The service aimed to be easily and freely accessible to all those who are parenting children.
At the time of the evaluation, the helpline service was based in 8 call centres in England. These are:
Croydon
East Midlands (Stamford)
Essex (Hadleigh)
Hampshire (Eastleigh)
Hertfordshire (Hatfield)
London (Kentish Town)
North East (Newcastle)
Nottingham.
Most helpline call takers are volunteers (over 200 at the time of the evaluation), working up to 4 hour shifts with the support of paid supervisors and call centre managers. Two call centres also employ paid call takers (42 at the time of the evaluation) to cover the night service and other hard-to-fill shifts.
Evaluation conclusions
Parentline Plus is providing a good quality helpline service to over 5,000 callers a month. Over the 15-month period reviewed, the volume of calls taken increased by over 70 percent. However, further expansion in the helpline service is necessary to meet demand from callers.
Most callers interviewed for this evaluation were satisfied with the service they had received, and felt 'helped' by having made the call. A significant group said it had impacted positively on their feelings about the problem, in some cases, more directly on the problem. The value of providing callers with someone to talk to cannot be underestimated.
The complex and severe nature of the problems that many callers telephoned about provided evidence that the helpline is dealing with a far higher level of need, and otherwise unmet need, than had been envisaged when it was first established.
There is good evidence that the helpline is reaching some excluded or hard-to-reach groups, but the extent to which the helpline is used by callers from black and minority ethnic groups, or those whose first language is not English, is less clear.
Ethnic Origin of callers
|
Ethnic origin |
Callers |
Percentage |
|
White British |
2919 |
78 |
|
Other White background |
154 |
4 |
|
Black |
207 |
5 |
|
Mixed Black |
42 |
1 |
|
Indian |
160 |
4 |
|
Pakistani/Bangladeshi |
69 |
2 |
|
Mixed Asian |
27 |
1 |
|
Other Asian |
115 |
3 |
|
Mixed Other |
7 |
<1 |
|
Other ethnicity |
58 |
2 |
Most calls were judged by the research team to have been adequately or well handled, although there was some evidence of inattentiveness from the call taker for a small number of calls. In many of the evaluated calls, call takers demonstrated considerable skill and sensitivity in their handling of the call, and in the quality and suitability of the advice given.
Key recommendations
The telephone helpline should be at the heart of Parentline Plus's activities, and the organisational focus should not be taken off this important activity. Further developments to increase efficiency and the volume of calls answered by call takers must not be at the cost of quality, or indeed the support needs of call takers.
Parentline Plus has encountered difficulties in volunteer recruitment that were said to have constrained development of the helpline service. These experiences were common to other voluntary service providers with helplines, yet most of the stakeholders interviewed in linked organisations would not advise Parentline Plus to stop using a volunteer-led service.
The extension of sessional paid call taking – for example, to other call centres – offers a potential strategy for increasing the volume of calls that successfully reach the helpline. Paid call takers who handle higher volumes of calls are likely to have distinctive training and support needs.
Parentline Plus could usefully explore creative and supportive approaches to collaboration with other providers of parenting and family support services, to support the process of signposting and referral between services, and to share ideas on service development strategies, particularly those relating to demand for the helpline.
Aims
The evaluation investigated whether the helpline is an efficient and effective way of providing support to parents, and whether it is making a positive impact on families. The findings in this report come from the call analysis of Parentline Plus, based on:
secondary analysis of Parentline Plus and British Telecom call data
evaluation of tape-recorded calls to the helpline
interviews with callers about their views and experiences of using the helpline
An assessment of the way in which calls to the helpline were handled, and an investigation of the views and perceptions of a sample of callers to the helpline.
Download: Evaluation of Parentline Plus
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Parentline Plus (PLP) website
Parentline telephone: 0808 800 2222
Parentline textphone: 0800 783 6783
Last update: 21 July 2004