Early Intervention -why do we leave it so late?
“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want for bread.” Thomas Jefferson, 1826
Early v Late Intervention – The Choice
The biggest philosophical battle that we will fight in politics over the next 20 years will be between the dominant Late Intervention philosophy of an over-centralised state & politicsand our developing Early Intervention philosophy. Early Intervention has been nurtured in the field of babies, children and young people. In future, its lessons will be as necessary and as commonplace in economics, public investment and foreign policy.
Poverty cannot be eliminated by short term handouts. Maximising human capability is the only sustainable answer to poverty in all its forms. Early intervention covers a raft of policies around the 0 to 18 age cycle designed to break the intergenerational continuum of deprivation, under-achievement and poverty of aspiration. The foundation is to promote social and emotional capability in babies, children and young people. This will allow them to go further with their language skills and academic attainment and become equipped to raise great families of their own.
The real vision of Early Intervention is to achieve a world in which citizens do for our society as a whole what we aspire as parents to do for our children. It will not only help us to raise great kids but has the power to reinvent ourpolitics.
Graham Allenrepresented the highly disadvantaged Nottingham North constituency [where he was born] as MP for 30 years from 1987-2017. We are extremely fortunate to have Graham to speak about his passion for early intervention and the challenges that we face in ensuring equality of opportunity for all of our children. He has been the most influential voice for Early Intervention for socially disadvantaged children for much of his time in parliament.He was a vociferous MP on behalf of his constituency and early intervention to support families and this became his driving passion devoting much of his time to promoting early intervention nationally.
Graham became the executive role of Chair of Nottingham’s Local Strategic Partnership in 2005 launching One Nottingham, Britain’s first “Early Intervention City”. In 2007 he wrote the highly influential “Early Intervention: good parents, great kids, better citizens “with Iain Duncan-Smith underlining his reputation for getting things done by working cross party.
In July 2010, in response to a request from Prime Minister, David Cameron, he carried out an Independent Review of Early Intervention for Her Majesty’s Government, producing two influential reports, “Early Intervention: the next steps” (January 2011) andEarly Intervention: Smart Investment, Massive Savings,(July 2011). Professor Hutchings contributed to these reports and our Early Intervention work at Bangor was recognised.
The reports resulted in funding for a nationalEarly Intervention Foundationthat was launched in February 2013 with Graham as its chair.
As an MP Graham convened Parliament’s “20 most deprived constituencies group and in 2014 he created, founded and is Chair of, theCharity “Rebalancing the Outer Estates”. This isa unique initiative to facilitate,convene and build local and national partnerships to tackle outer city deprivation and replicate effective practise nationwide on jobs, skills, community and public health issues. The Charity with its high-powered Board and connectivity has built an impressive list of achievements to date and has an ambitious future programme.