THE boss of a parenting support programme has hit back at claims the system is ineffective, and defended a health chief against allegations she acted inappropriately.
Matt Buttery, chief executive of the Triple P scheme described the criticism by Aberdeen University professor Phil Wilson as "misleading".
Mr Wilson made the claims after he resigned from a steering group overseeing the use of the system by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) with pregnant mothers.
It came after the health board rejected the findings of a £190,000 study the professor co-authored.
It said Triple P had a limited effect for families from deprived background and suffered from a high drop-out rate.
In his resignation letter, Mr Wilson questioned the health board's investment of at least £8 million in the Triple P method, and its rejection of his team's research findings.
He has also queried the independence of Dr Linda de Caestecker, the city's head of public health.
In particular, he pointed out that she appears in promotional materials for Triple P.
Yesterday Mr Buttery said: "Triple P UK is concerned about a letter widely circulated by Prof Phil Wilson which includes gross inaccuracies.
"Prof Wilson's statement contains a number of misleading and unsubstantiated allegations and his claims are simply not supported by the facts."
Describing the recent study of Triple P as "incomplete", he said it was co-authored with the author of a rival parenting programme, understood to be Christine Puckering. The Glasgow-based psychologist has developed a system called Mellow Parenting.
Mr Buttery added: "Prof Wilson's claims have been refuted in a recent meta-analysis of Triple P, which has been published in a leading high-impact, peer-reviewed scientific journal.
"Triple P UK reiterates its support for the NHSGGC decision to reject the conclusion of a recently released evaluation into Triple P in Glasgow, led by Prof Wilson, because it lacked sufficient rigour and suffered from apparent bias.
"The NHS has said it is considering conducting an independent evaluation of its Parenting Support Framework. We strongly support this suggestion."
Mr Buttery also confirmed Dr Caestecker had appeared in promotional materials for the company, but defended the public health chief.
"We refute any allegation from Professor Wilson that Dr de Caestecker may have acted inappropriately in endorsing Triple P," he said.
"It was right that Dr De Caestecker would talk about why the programme was chosen."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article