Children: Early Intervention

Baroness Ritchie of Brompton Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Brompton]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for bringing this important topic to the House for us to debate again. I know that the coalition Government take early intervention very seriously, and I am sure that they will be listening to our contributions—the Minister is with us. I know that they want to ensure that effective strategies are put in place throughout the country.

Early intervention has been proven to work by numerous anecdotes, individual programmes and—as my noble friend Lady Walmsley said—a lot of research both in Britain and overseas. However, as I said in my previous contributions on this topic, I am concerned that the effect of early intervention can only be seen in the very long term, and often it is quick results and short-termism that attract continued finance. Therefore, we must ensure that long-term funding, support and monitoring are all put in place for all early intervention programmes to ensure their effectiveness. It is difficult to prove the positive impact of early intervention as many of the projects have been funded for too short a time although they are showing excellent results. As the National Children’s Bureau has commented, the real research findings on the outcomes of Sure Start tend to show that results really become evidenced many years down the line. I declare an interest as president of the NCB.

Perhaps I may bring to the House’s attention the latest report from the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s Services, also known as C4EO, which collates much of the work on outcomes for children and families, including work on early intervention. Grasping the Nettle is a joint report with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and makes the very good point that although targeted approaches tend to be judged more cost-effective than universal approaches, there is little comparative evidence to determine which approach might be the right course of action. Indeed, the report concludes that it is likely to be a combination of both and that a range of interventions would support different levels of need.

However, one outcome is clear. It is far more cost-effective to put in place rigorous early intervention schemes than to have to deal with the cost of problems later on. A long-term scheme in the United States called the Nurse Family Partnership found that $9,000 spent per child had the average benefit of more than $26,000 per child in later life, and also that crime reduction was an important contributor to that benefit. The scheme is replicated in the UK as the Family Nurse Partnership, but a long-term evaluation has not yet been completed.

My second point is that parenting programmes, to which my noble friend Lady Walmsley referred, are an essential part of any early intervention support. International studies and effective local practice in the UK have shown very clearly that good parenting, regardless of background, is crucial to good outcomes for children and young people Effective parenting support leads to improved outcomes for children, parents and families. Parenting is one of the most difficult jobs and yet there is no training or recognition for this vital role in our society.

Again, I believe that we need properly funded long-term projects. It is not fair that some parents get support while a three or five-year project being run before closure possibly due to a lack of funding leaves other parents with no help. When resources are scarce we need to ensure that we have the vision—which I believe that this Government have—to lead the commissioning of good, evidenced-based, multi-agency targeting of parenting and other early intervention support. Evidence by the NCB suggests that multi-agency approaches are the most effective in complex families.

The OECD suggests that expenditure on children should be regarded as if it were an investment portfolio, with a continual process of evaluation and reallocation to ensure that child well-being is actually improved. I welcome the model that C4EO has developed to help assess the cost of effective interventions at a time of reducing resources, as the methodology up to now has been weak. I hope that local authorities will make use of it. All the international evidence suggests that spending more intensively earlier is cost-effective, particularly for children in disadvantaged families, and we need to ensure that we roll out successful early intervention support throughout the United Kingdom.