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

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

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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

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

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

Page 2: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 3: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 4: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing
Page 5: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 6: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing
Page 7: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing
Page 8: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing
Page 9: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

The benefits of early intervention

Page 10: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

• 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

Page 11: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 12: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 13: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing
Page 14: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

Priorities for early intervention

Page 15: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 16: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 17: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 18: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 19: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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.

Page 20: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

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

Page 21: Acting Early, Changing Lives: How prevention and early action saves money and improves wellbeing

Thank you

http://benevolent.org.au/actingearly

Contact: [email protected]

For the full ‘Acting Early, Changing Lives’ report: