Birth to three matters - Communities and Local Government

Providing information and teachingparenting skills can change families(parents may have inaccurate orincomplete information, be frustratedat their own inability to enhance theirchild’s behaviour or learning);Personal counselling can changefamilies (people can have negativeperceptions of themselves and theirabilities);Increasing parental empowerment canchange families (better resources,changing a poor environment, reducingstress and sharing responsibility reducethe impact of an unhealthy context).(Adapted from Gallagher 1990:543).In a rev i ew of the re s e a rch ev i d e n ce one a rly inte rve ntions to enhance the ment a lhealth of children and their familiescompiled for the Me ntal He a l t hFo u n d at i o n ,Ba rnes and Fre u d e - La g eva rd i(2002) conclude that prog rammes need tobe po s i t i ve, n o n - d e f i c i t, c u l t u ra l ly sensitive,s ys temic (based on an eco l og i cal mod e l )and so matched to part i c i p a nt s’ n e e d s.Such prog rammes need to be targ e ted onat - risk co m m u n i t i e s, those with high rate sof pove rty, single and adolesce ntp a re nt h ood, and invo lve both children andp a re nt s, without stigmatising individuals.Their rev i ew indicates that bo t hp ro fessionals and para - p ro fe s s i o n a l s,wo rking alongside families, should sharedecision making and that both pre- andpo s t - n atal inte rve ntions which do not tryto ope rate on too many fro nts at the sametime are like ly to prove most effe ct i ve. On eof their most telling state m e nts co n ce rn sthe impo rt a n ce of ‘a reasonable sat i s f y i n gt h e ra peutic re l at i o n s h i p’ ( Ba rnes andFre u d e - La g eva rdi 2002: 46 ), w h i c h , if note s t a b l i s h e d, cannot be co m pe n s ated fo rt h rough lengthy inte rve nt i o n s. In otherwo rd s, ra p po rt be tween wo rkers andfamilies is essential (Se i fer et al 1991 ).Fawcett’s (2001) review of early childhoodinterventions related to special needs forthe DfES concludes, inter alia:-the need to move to a ‘joined up’ modelof deliveryto build on the model of Sure Start inareas of moderate disadvantageto accept that some ‘false positives’ willbe identified, who will later prove theintervention to have been unnecessaryto build the potential of parents andparaprofessionals for effective and costeffectiveidentification and interventionharness the natural involvement ofparents to build parenting skillsprovide for accreditation of priorexperience and learning towardsqualifications for paraprofessionalsprovide training for ECEC personnelwhich bridges the health-educationdivideprovide training through a variety ofmodels, including distance and parttimeresidential coursesimprove interagency communication,understanding and mutual respectring fence funding for identificationand intervention for children from 0-2fund further research136 EDUCATION ANDSKILLS B I RT H T O T H R E E M AT T E R S