Delivering Child Community Psychology Services in the Community: Experiences from the NIPPERS Project

The NIPPERS (Nursery Intervention Project for Parents & Education Related Services) was a novel community psychology service based in nursery settings in socio-economically disadvantaged, inner-city areas in London.

The service included consultation work with nursery staff, structured parenting groups and individual sessions for parents.

The delivery of the clinical service and research evaluation underwent several changes in the first phase of the project, in particular to ensure that the service was acceptable and accessible to families and staff. Although take-up of community services was higher than in the local clinic-based services, it was not taken up by some 40% of parents. Due to the allocation design, it was not possible to measure the effectiveness of the intervention.

The NIPPERS service was successful in delivering a community child psychology service to families with high levels of early child behavioural problems at high risk for continuing difficulties.