The Benevolent Society has released a report to mark its 200th Anniversary that sounds a serious warning about the wellbeing of Australia’s children, and unsustainable future costs to fix social problems which can be prevented by more investment in support for families during children’s early years. http://bit.ly/acting_early_report “In dealing with increasing problems such as crime, obesity, anti-social behaviour, child abuse and mental illness, our governments are stuck in a cycle of reacting too late when it’s more costly and less effective,” said The Benevolent Society CEO Anne Hollonds. The report, Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing was commissioned by The Benevolent Society, Australia’s first and longest running not-for-profit organisation, and prepared by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. http://bit.ly/acting_early_report

1. Acting Early,
Changing Lives:
How prevention and early action saves money and improves
wellbeing.

2. Key Messages
• The more adverse experiences and the earlier they occur, the
greater the risk of poor outcomes for individuals in the long-
term.
• The benefits of intervening early are far-reaching and range
from reduced contact with juvenile and adult justice
systems, reduced notifications of child abuse and
neglect, through to improved school performance and better
employment outcomes.
• Early interventions not only lead to more positive outcomes for
individuals and society, they are also cost effective.

3. The cause of Australia’s worrying trends
• Evidence indicates worsening or unacceptably high levels of
problems amongst Australia’s children and young people.
• Poorly-resourced families can find the heightened demands of
contemporary living and parenting overwhelming.
• The parents in most need tend to be the ones who are least likely
to access support services.

5. Timing is everything: The importance of early childhood
• Child development is driven and shaped by an ongoing interaction
between biology (i.e. genetic predispositions) and ecology (i.e. the
social and physical environment).
• Discrepancies between children from advantaged and
disadvantaged backgrounds emerge early.
• Promoting children’s development and learning involves ensuring
that the environments in which they spend their time are optimal.

9. The benefits of early intervention

10. • Early intervention is defined as interventions that occur during the
early years of an individual’s life (0-5 years of age) in order to
prevent a negative outcome or to address an existing problem.
• Early intervention can have significant social and economic
benefits.
Early intervention

11. The social benefits of early intervention
The social benefits of early
intervention programs are
especially pronounced for
programs that target children
and families experiencing
disadvantage.

12. The economic benefits of early intervention
• Professor James Heckman’s seminal work in this area notes that
the younger the age group receiving support through targeted
programs, the higher the rate of return, with the highest rate of
return from interventions that occur during the 0–3 age period.
• Investing early facilitates larger benefits over a longer period of
time.
• Some of the most dramatic cost benefits of individual early
intervention programs have been those that target disadvantaged
families.

14. Priorities for early intervention

15. Program and direct service level priorities
• Provide free or low-cost preschool provision to three year old
children experiencing significant disadvantage to ameliorate some
of the negative impacts of disadvantage, ensuring a more level
‘playing field’ upon school entry.
• Provide support to families experiencing disadvantage during the
prenatal period to promote the optimal development of children.

16. Program and direct service level priorities
• Deliver programs of sufficient duration and intensity to families
experiencing significant disadvantage as it appears that programs
of less than 12 months are generally ineffective at shifting
outcomes for disadvantaged children and families.
• Provide direct services to children and families that promote the
quality of the environments in which young children spend their
time to ensure that parents and other caregivers relate to children
in ways that protect, nourish and promote their development and
wellbeing.

17. Community and service system level priorities
• Build a tiered system of services based on universal provision to
ensure that all families receive a core set of services with
additional services being provided to those with greater needs.
• Build whole of community, place-based, ‘collective impact’
alliances to develop and deliver a comprehensive suite of
interventions that target whole communities and address both
the presenting and the background needs of vulnerable families.

18. Community and service system level priorities
• Design and run services in
partnership with those who
use them to ensure that
vulnerable families have
access to, and make better
use of, supportive child and
family services.
• Utilise outreach workers to
engage those families most
in need of support.

19. Structural and societal level priorities
• Address the conditions under which families are raising young
children as the evidence indicates that many of the poor
outcomes experienced by vulnerable families are either caused or
exacerbated by the social and economic conditions under which
parents are raising their children.
• Raise public awareness about the nature and importance of the
early years and the need for greater investment in the early years
as the importance of this life stage is not widely understood by the
general public.

20. The social benefits of early intervention
• overall health
• improved employment outcomes
• improved mental health
• improved parenting outcomes
• reduced rates of risky behaviours
• reduced criminality
• reduced notifications of child
abuse and neglect

21. Thank you
http://benevolent.org.au/actingearly
Contact: research.policy@benevolent.org.au
For the full ‘Acting Early, Changing Lives’ report: