About Us: The PiP Story
Partners in Parenting (PiP) aims to bridge the gap between complex research evidence and practical resources for parents.
We know that parents play an important role in protecting their child's mental wellbeing. However, despite extensive research supporting the role parents can play in reducing the risk and impact of mental health problems in their teenage children, this information is often not easily accessible to parents.
PiP brings together decades of high-quality research evidence and the consensus of international experts on parenting and youth mental health. Parents can access this information via interactive, online programs, designed to build skills and confidence in ways that may protect their child from depression and anxiety disorders.
To date, we've conducted multiple research trials with over 5000 parents across Australia and the UK. Our results show that PiP is effective, with benefits for both parents and their teens.
Partners in Parenting Plus - Education (PiP-Ed+)
Difficulties attending school are common in young people who experience depression and/or anxiety disorders. Drawing on extensive co-design work with parents, young people, and professionals who support families, and feedback from parents who have completed previous versions of PiP, we have added new program content to better support parents of teenagers who experience difficulty attending school due to emotional distress (sometimes called ‘school refusal’ or ‘school can't’).
The Partners in Parenting Plus - Education (PiP-Ed+) program includes three new modules to equip parents with strategies to effectively support teenagers experiencing difficulty attending school due to emotional distress.
If you'd like to read more about the research behind PiP, click here for a summary of published papers, or get in touch with us at pip-ed@monash.edu.
The people behind PiP
Prof Marie Yap, OAM
Lead Researcher & Founder of Partners in Parenting
Marie is a Professor, Psychologist, and Head of the Parenting and Youth Mental Health Research Group at Monash University. Marie is the founder and lead researcher of the Partners in Parenting program and has been recognised as a leading international expert in family relationships.
Dr Mairead Cardamone-Breen
Program Lead, Partners in Parenting
Mairead is a Clinical Psychologist and Research Fellow in the Parenting and Youth Mental Health Research Group at Monash University. Mairead has been instrumental in the development and evaluation of the Partners in Parenting program, including PiP-Ed+.
Emeritus Prof Tony Jorm
Tony is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne and an NHMRC Leadership Fellow. His research focuses on public knowledge and beliefs about mental illness, and interventions to improve the public's helpfulness towards people developing mental illness. Tony has been a key contributor to all Partners in Parenting projects to date.
Prof Glenn Melvin
Glenn is a Professor & Clinical Psychologist with extensive academic and clinical expertise in adolescent depression, suicide, and school refusal and attendance problems. He is a founder of the International Network for School Attendance. Glenn has contributed to the development and evaluation of all Partners in Parenting Plus programs to date, including PiP-Ed+.
Dr Anna Smout
Anna is a Clinical Psychologist and Research Fellow in the Parenting and Youth Mental Health Research Group at Monash University. In her research and clinical work, Anna specialises in the areas of parenting and parent-child relationships. Anna led the co-design and first evaluation of the PiP-Ed+ program as part of her PhD research.
Brydie Garner
Brydie is completing her PhD in Psychology at Monash University with the Parenting and Youth Mental Health Research Group. Her research focuses on how we can better support parents of neurodivergent teenagers experiencing school attendance difficulties.
Action Lab
Action Lab is a multidisciplinary team of impact-focused researchers in the Department of Human-Centred Computing at Monash University, Australia. They have been instrumental in co-designing recent versions of PiP, with the latest technology and their domain expertise in computer science, human-centred design methods, interaction design and digital mental health.
Action Lab is led by Professor Patrick Olivier and includes a highly energetic and creative team of researchers and research engineers, including Dr Jue (Grace) Xie, Dr Ling Wu, Kent Hou Man, and Nizomjon Khajiev.
Acknowledgements
The Partners in Parenting program is part of a suite of parenting resources from the Parenting Strategies Program, which was first established in 2010. Throughout its history, the program has had many contributors and funders, whom we cannot all acknowledge by name here. Nonetheless, special thanks go to the following key contributors to the Partners in Parenting program: Associate Professor Katherine Lawrence (Monash University), Professor Ron Rapee (Macquarie University), Professor Bei Bei (Monash University), and all the staff, students, and volunteers of the Parenting and Youth Mental Health Group from 2014 to 2026.
We acknowledge and thank the partners on this project: headspace National and Parents Victoria, including Parents Victoria CEO Gail McHardy. We thank the parents and young people who have contributed feedback throughout the different stages of the PiP journey, including co-design of the PiP-Ed+ program.
Funding
This trial is funded by a 2023 Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Childhood Mental Health Research grant (MRF2035984).
We also acknowledge with thanks the funding which have supported the development and evaluation of the PiP program from 2011-2026, including: National Health and Medical Research Council (APP IDs 2005621, 566652, 1061744, 400001), Medical Research Future Fund (GNT2005621, MRF2006438, MRF2023265), Australian Rotary Health, Monash University, and Helen Macpherson Smith Trust.
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