Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young Peoples Services

Early InterventionGood Practice across the UK

Michelle KennedyChild Poverty

Sector Specialist

The Good News

• Growing focus on policies which promote child well-being and early intervention , aiming to alleviate or prevent impact of poverty on children and families.

• Big emphasis on early years 0-3 • Lots of research , money and attention • Lots of good practice - growing body of evidence

including cost effectiveness

But be a little wary...• Child poverty is about family income and resources

– so policy still needs to focus on employment and cash transfers as well as reducing barriers

• A principal goal of child poverty strategies is to break the link between families’ poor resources and adverse child outcomes (Williams Shanks & Danziger, 2011)

Early intervention some tips about what works

• Before you start ....( or even when you want to review what you’ve already got)

• How does your EI strategy or work link to child poverty?

• Are your programmes clearly specified ?• Have you got good evaluation built in ?• Can you evidence impact?• How integrated and sustained will your

programme be?• How cost effective is the programme

A few case studiesThe Community Mums and Dads Project – Reading West Berkshire

• Evidence-based home visiting programme, designed around the University of Bristol Childhood Development Programme.

• Aimed at improving mental health of hard to reach mothers and children under the age of 6. Delivered by local mums and dads as volunteers and referrals come from professionals. -

Outcomes include.. –Improved parental mental health.

- Healthier family lifestyles.- Children better behaved and better school attendance.- Better family communications. -34 families benefiting from the programme during the period

January to June 2010 did so at a cost of £961 per family.

Incredible Years: Poole et al • Three interlocking training programmes for parents, children and

teachers. The parenting programmes span the age range of 0 12 years. ‐The child and teacher programmes span the age range of 3–8 years. Developed by Webster-Stratton.

• Outcomes include:• -Increased parental positive affect (e.g. praise and reduced criticism

and negative commands.)• -Increased effective parental limit setting.‐• -Replacing spanking and harsh discipline with non violent discipline ‐

techniques.• -Increased monitoring of children.• -Reductions in parental depression.

• Typical costs: Basic 3 day – train the trainer IY Basic Infant & Toddler programme costs @£450 (Wales) plus additional 1 day courses @£175 for IY School Age, Advance, School Readiness and Supervision. Training also provided by Archways in Republic of Ireland.

Building Bridges-Family Action• Improving the safety, health and wellbeing of children through

improving the physical and mental health of mothers, fathers and carers.

• Works with parents/families (works holistically in family home with parents and children)

• Outcomes include• Reduction of 22 per cent in the number of parents with clinically

significant problems.• Significant reduction in the number of children on the child protection

register and in the number of adults on the Care Programme Approach.

• Contributed to halving the number of vulnerable families with health needs.

• 40 families can be supported over the course of one year at a cost of £3,500 per family (2009/10).

• Estimated Savings to DWP/local authority over two years are £158,400Estimated

• Savings to the NHS over two years are £67,200.

UK Resilience Programme (UKRP) Hertfordshire• UKRP is an evidenced based proactive programme (18 lessons) that

can reduce depression and anxiety and improve behaviour. It is a cognitive behavioural therapy programme developed to help students achieve better outcomes by assessing a situation based on evidence and accuracy.

• Aimed at Children aged 11-13 (delivered by teachers in schools) -

Outcomes include:• Significant positive impact on pupils’ depression and anxiety.• Improvements in school in attendance and behaviour data, numbers

attending school counsellor drop-in sessions, • improved attitude to learning aligned to a sense of confidence and

self esteem • Hertfordshire LA invested heavily in the initial set-up and

development of programme as a pilot and as a result now offers places at the 7-day UKRP at a cost of £250 per person per day.

Strengthening Families- Tower Hamlets• The Strengthening Families Programmes (SFP10-14) designed to increase resilience and

reduce risk factors for alcohol and substance misuse, depression, violence and aggression, delinquency and school failure in high risk children and their substance misusing parents

• Developed as part of Parenting Early Intervention Pathfinder Programme in Tower Hamlets• Aimed at parents and young people (spans multiple age groups) • SFSC in TH specifically designed to be suitable for people from a broad range of different

ethnic and cultural backgrounds, with course materials available in a range of community languages spoken in Tower Hamlets, including Bengali and Somali.

• Part of the course specifically geared towards parental engagement and community involvement, which added value to the project when considering the long-term impact on parents’ personal progression and community growth

Outcomes include:• Improved parental mental well-being, parenting behaviour, parental efficacy and

satisfaction-• Decrease in permanent exclusion of pupils from school• During the project, a unit cost to run a PEIP SFSC course in Tower Hamlets was £7,863.http://www.c4eo.org.uk/themes/earlyintervention/vlpdetails.aspx?lpeid=383

The Helping Families Programme, Southwark, Camden, Ealing and Maidenhead

• The Helping Families Programme (HFP) is targeted specifically at the small but significant number of families with multiple problems

• Programme is organised into core practice modules and intervention modules

• Evidence-based strategies and techniques, derived from cognitive, behavioural, social learning, relational, attachment and systems theories to develop individualised implementation plans

Outcomes include• Reduced frequency and severity of child conduct problems.• Improvement in parents’ reports of their ability to monitor, regulate and

control their emotions.• Reduction in parents’ negative beliefs.• Improvement in parenting behaviours and access to universal parenting

resources e.g. parenting programmes.• Improved school attendance. • Total cost is approximately £1,642 per family to receive the HFP with

improved outcomes across family lifehttp://www.c4eo.org.uk/themes/earlyintervention/vlpdetails.aspx?lpeid=417

• .

Want to know more?

• 'Grasping the nettle‘ C4EO report : key messages from sectors wealth of evidence of 'what works', including research findings, practice guide

• Evidence based practice – C4EO website• Graham Allen -Early Intervention: the next steps –

Published January 2011• Centre for Social Justice : report Early Intervention ‘Good

Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens ‘Graham Allen, Iain Duncan –Smith

• Nottingham City Council • http://www.earlyinterventionresources.co.uk/