MASPIN: a formative evaluation tool supporting dialog among professionals and with families

Background
The consequences of child neglect are still too often played down. It is important to intervene at an early stage, approaching families at home through means adapted to community-level action.
Interventions by health and social professionals face several hurdles: (1) the difficulty for front-line health and social professionals to make a diagnosis; (2) the difficulty of entering into a dialog with possible beneficiaries of the interventions owing to distrust; and (3) the difficulty of assessing the outcome of the interventions.
In order to answer the need for the medium-term assessment of our intervention programs in the field of neglect and attachment disorders, our multidisciplinary team (psychologists, a general practitioner, an anthropologist and an educationalist) designed a tool aimed at supporting the observation of challenging indicators by parents and intervening parties in a given educational situation.
Method
The MASPIN tool (Method for Analysis of Situations and Project on Individual cases of Neglect) was designed on the basis of a review of existing literature on assessment tools for actions in the field concerning parental disorders, focusing on children up to three years old. Field professionals were involved in the design process in order to make sure that the tool matched their daily practice.
Results
The tool allows a six-fold assessment of: interactions between parents and child, parental skills, acknowledgement by parents of their difficulties or responsibilities, environmental factors, how the family experienced the intervention, and the intervening party’s experience.
Discussion and conclusion
The MASPIN tool could foster the development of a common knowledge and culture regarding intervention on neglect. Our limited use unveiled unexpected potential. It makes for interesting prospects in structuring the dialog between front-line professionals (medics, nurses and social workers) and experts. Moreover, it helps to ease the dialog between intervening parties and parents, clearly identifying existing parental skills and specific issues that might call for educational assistance.