Critical Reflections on Early Intervention

Abstract

Amidst significant public spending cuts announced by the coalition government in the United Kingdom, early intervention has been popular with policy makers across the political divide. Early intervention is intended to prevent social problems before they happen to save taxpayers’ money in the long term by tackling problem citizens early and reducing the need for costly solutions such as prisons, policing, drug rehabilitation and benefits. Despite a wide acceptance of early intervention as a way forward in supporting children and their parents, there is a lack of transparency and clarity in its scope and goals and the principles that should guide family policy in general and early intervention in particular. This prompts a key question: is the aim of early intervention to offer access to public services for families who need them most or is it to regulate disadvantaged families to ensure that they act in ways deemed acceptable by family ‘experts’ and policy makers? Early intervention as a means of providing access to public services for families who need them and choose to use them is certainly a positive step, considering the gradual removal of public services (e.g. education, health) from public to private spheres. However, early intervention in the form of family regulation and control with the state being overly concerned about what disadvantaged parents do with their children at home is morally dubious and politically exploitative, and has implications regarding the relationship between the state and individuals, and the extent to which parents can function as a buffer between their children and the state.