Early intervention programmes yield mixed results, major review finds

According to a review by the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) charity, early intervention programmed involving nurses and health visitors working closely with vulnerable families has been met with mixed success rates.

The review focused on schemes aimed at boosting early bonding and interaction between parents and children up to the age of five and examined whether there was enough evidence to show how effective they were.

The findings identified the government-backed Family Nurse Partnership scheme, which deploys specially trained nurses to work with first-time mothers, as one of two to achieve the top rating for effectiveness. The review also noted that the Family Nurse Partnership scheme was one of the two most expensive programmes included in the study.

Another scheme, called the Social Baby programme, designed to provide better support for mothers at risk of postnatal depression, was found in a recent UK trial to be unlikely to make a difference to mothers’ depression or help avoid disruption to the mother and baby bond. Similarly, the Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home-visiting scheme, delivered by child and family nurses or health visitors was another judged to have ‘no effect’.

Nonetheless, in its review Foundations for Life: What Works to Support Parent Child Interaction in the Early Years, the EIF maintained that a rating of ‘no effect’ did not necessarily mean the programme would never work, but that they may simply need to be adapted in order to be considered effective in the future.

Carey Oppenheim , chief executive of the EIF, commented: “This doesn’t mean commissioners should drop programmes which don’t yet have strong evidence. Local commissioners need to use this evidence and the ratings alongside their knowledge of the local context to make carefully judged spending decisions.”

The report concluded: “Existing practices need better evaluation, learning from the best programmes and testing what works in the practices of health visitors for example.”