1. The ‘Preventative
Services’ agenda
Nathan Loynes

2. Key Themes
• Social Justice
• Anti-poverty Strategy
• Non-stigmatised services
• Infantile determinism and brain malleability
• The USA influence of headstart
• Proactive services including APIR (CAF)
assessments and ‘Outreach’
• Every Child Matters
• The Children’s Plan
• The recession and reducing taxpayer costs.

3. Why Early Intervention?
• “ Like it or not, the most important mental
and behavioural patterns, once established,
are difficult to change once children enter
school.” (Heckman & Wax, 2004).
• In other words, the Jesuit maxim: ““Give me a
child until he is seven and I will give you the
man”.

4. Financial Investment and return

5. Or put another way
(Schweinhart, Barnes & Weikart, 1993) Perry preschool evaluation)

6. Critical Period
• “There is a critical period’ which extends for at
least the first few years of life (Rose &
Chalmers, 1971, p. 247). During this critical
period aspects of cognitive functioning,
related to experience and symbolic
functioning can be enhanced.” (Source: Athey, 2007, p 32)

7. Human Capacity to Learn

8. What you take into school is what you
take out of school
“ If the race is already halfway
run even before children begin
school, then we clearly need to
examine what happens in the
earliest years.”
(Esping-Andersen, 2005)

9. Melhuish (2006)

10. Summary
• The expansion of services for children between 1997-2008 was
unprecedented. (ECM).
• There are ‘ideological’ arguments for helping the disadvantaged;
perhaps summed up by ‘social justice’.
• There are ‘evidence informed’ arguments for helping the
disadvantaged; perhaps summed up by ‘the Heckman curve’.
• Early intervention and preventative services require a more
sophisticated understanding and application of ‘children’s needs’
than perhaps envisaged by thresholds of s.17; s.47 of The Children
Act 1989.
• Sure Start/Children’s centres were a manifestation of Labour
ideology (Levitas, 1998)
• Evaluations of ‘preventative services’ (i.e. the effectiveness of
SureStart) are somewhat tenuous in the UK.
• Question: Should we pursue preventative agendas without
conclusive evidence of their effectiveness?