INTRODUCTION
Most relationships have their ups and downs, and disagreements and arguments are normal. But arguments between parents that are intense, hostile and poorly resolved can be harmful to their children. Learning to argue in ways that are helpful rather than harmful is vital for maintaining healthy relationships.
See it differently is an early intervention project to help low income parents with low digital skills recognise and reflect on conflict in their relationship with current or ex-partners, as well as the impact on their children. It is structured around four videos and two animations that use evidence-based techniques to promote behaviour change. The resource has been made available where parents are already seeking information, including online and at organisations in our Online Centres Network with guided delivery. Funding for this project is from the Reducing Parental Conflict Challenge Fund, provided by the Department of Work and Pensions.
A guide to ‘See it differently’
This online guide has three sections that each take about 30-40 minutes to complete. You can dip in and out of them based on what you already know and what you need to learn to help you feel confident to share the See it differently video resource with parents:
Section 1 – What do I need to know about relationships?
We have provided a brief summary of the important evidence for this work, including:
- Why do relationships matter?
- What is the impact of relationship conflict on children and families?
- When is conflict harmful for children?
This is particularly important if you haven't done any other training about parental conflict and aren't familiar with information about what makes relationships work or not. We call this relationship science as it is based on research.
Throughout this guide we have used ‘practitioner’ to refer to anyone who supports parents, including volunteers, coaches, mentors, and family support workers.
Section 2 – How do I have conversations about relationships with parents?
This section introduces a simple framework for talking to parents about their relationship based on OnePlusOne’s tried and tested Brief Encounters® approach. Using this framework will help you recognise when someone is experiencing relationship difficulties, develop skills and knowledge to have a relationship conversation, and help parents to see it differently.
We have incorporated a case study so you can see an example of using this approach and resource in practice.
Section 3 – See it differently resource
This is for anyone who wants to run a session with parents using the See it differently videos:
- What is See it differently?
- Four family videos and two animations to overcome objections
- How do I introduce this resource to parents?
- A session plan template
Using this content for your own purposes
Do you want to republish our videos on your own website or social media channels? Great, but we do have a couple of guidelines for you to follow. If you have any questions after reading through the guidance, just email us at info@oneplusone.org.
- You need to let us know when you’ve used our content. The ‘See It Differently’ campaign is an innovation project funded by the Department for Work and Pensions and we are continuing to improve our resources. So please email us on info@oneplusone.org explaining what you’ve used the content for with a URL or proof if applicable - if you can provide us with any analytics on how many people you’ve reached that would be great!
We’ll feed this into our learning from the project which will help us understand how we can reach even more parents.
- You’ll need to make sure you include a link back to www.seeitdifferently.org: We’ve put together some example text which you may find useful. “This video has been republished from www.seeitdifferently.org.” This also helps with our evaluation of the campaign.
- You can’t edit our content: while we understand you may need to make a few changes to make the content adhere to your brand guidelines, we ask that you do not make any material edits without running them by us first.
If you'd like to share the resources, but would like guidance
We've prepared a social sharing guide, so please do click the button below to view (or download).
