Preventing intergenerational disadvantage and poor psychosocial wellbeing: How family factors influence the long-term effects of adversity

Many children experience adversities such as maltreatment and household dysfunction, which can impact their social, emotional and behavioural wellbeing across their lifetime. An important risk factor for childhood adversity is social disadvantage, including low educational attainment and unemployment. Both adversity and social disadvantage can be transmitted across generations, in part due to their impact on parenting practices and parental expectations.

This project aims to develop our understanding of these elements, their interrelationships, and how we can use secondary data and parenting interventions to help parents achieve better outcomes for their children, despite their family’s experiences of adversity and social disadvantage. It includes a literature review, quantitative and qualitative interviews, secondary data analysis, development of a parenting intervention, and a randomised control trial of the new intervention.