Lord Laming supports early intervention

12 March 2009

Chance UK today gave its full support to the position of Lord Laming on the need for early intervention for children.

Following the case of ‘Baby P’, Lord Laming was commissioned to provide an urgent report on the progress being made across the country to implement effective arrangements for safeguarding children. The aim was to evaluate the good practice that has been developed since the report following the death of Victoria Climbié, to identify the barriers that are now preventing good practice becoming standard practice, and recommend actions to be taken to make systematic improvements in safeguarding children across the country.

Whilst a large portion of the report focuses on child protection work for those at risk, it also highlights the need for early intervention. “Leaders of local services must recognise the importance of early intervention and ensure that their departments support children as soon as they are recognised as being ‘in need’, averting escalation to the point at which families are in crisis.”

As an early intervention programme, Chance UK sees children going through our programme who develop the skills and resources to deal with the challenges that they face in their everyday lives. We support parents so that they can build a positive relationship with their child, and hopefully avoid having to go down the child protection plan route.

The resourcing of early intervention programmes is often a challenge. Laming quotes the Audit Commission as having estimated that if effective early intervention had been provided for just one in ten young people sentenced who end up in custody each year, public services alone could have saved over £100 million annually.

Yet often funds are diverted away from preventative work, as we have recently experienced in Hackney. Laming states ““It is imperative that those making financial decisions on the safeguarding of children at national and local level accurately plan adequate provision around real need and risk factors, rather than historic spending or even numbers of children who are the subject of child protection plans.

In doing so, they should ensure that sufficient resources are in place to support early intervention and preventative services in addition to ensuring child protection work is properly resourced.”

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