Using a conceptual map and existing interventions, the Helping Families Programme was developed. The Helping Families Programme is targeted specifically at the small but significant number of families with multiple problems, where chaotic parenting is likely to give rise to disruptive antisocial behaviour. The Helping Families Programme is a manualised intervention, which improves the outcomes of children who live in some of the most complex and disadvantaged families in the UK. Children and families with such difficulties offer significant challenges to service providers and are the least likely to benefit from existing parenting programmes. Multi-stressed, high need families are particularly difficult to engage, retain and treat.