The critical elements of the Early Start model include:
The program goals are: improvements in child health; reduction in child abuse; improvements in parenting skills; improvements in parental physical and mental health; family economic and material wellbeing; and stable and positive intimate partnerships.
The delivery of services is based on several common principles:
The program is designed for families of children who have been identified as at risk, for example because of the age of parents, parental social support, unplanned pregnancy, parental substance use, the family financial situation, family violence, or where there were serious concerns about the ability of the family to care for the child.
In an RCT in New Zealand with 443 families, 27% of parents in the intervention group were Maori, and 24.8% of mothers and 30.7% of fathers in the control group were Maori (Fergusson et al. 2005). In the intervention group, 90.1% of families were welfare dependent; in the control group, 88.4% of families were welfare dependent.
The program has not been evaluated in Australia.
Child visits to hospital ER, Positive parenting, Physical assault: Fergusson et al. (2005) provided evidence that the program has a positive effect on child safety through a reduction in child visits to hospital Emergency Rooms. They also demonstrated a positive effect on parenting that was not reliant on punishment.
Child abuse and neglect: The same study failed to demonstrate an effect on the reduction of harm as measured by rates of contact with child welfare agencies.
None
Overall, the program had a mixed effect on client outcomes.
Mixed research evidence (with no adverse effects):
The program is delivered to families of preschool aged children and has a duration of 36 months. The program involves home visits by family support workers with nursing or social work qualifications who have also attended a five-week training program specific to Early Start. Each family support worker supports 10 to 20 families.
The program of home visitation is tailored to meet individual family needs. An initial needs assessment is conducted through four weekly visits, to determine the subsequent level of intervention. The study did not provide information on the contents of each level of intervention
Information not available
The study was an RCT with original sample size of 443 families, final sample size of 391 families, of whom 220 received the intervention (Fergusson et al., 2005).
16 Feb 2023
We acknowledge Aboriginal people as the First Nations Peoples of NSW and pay our respects to Elders past, present, and future.
Informed by lessons of the past, Department of Communities and Justice is improving how we work with Aboriginal people and communities. We listen and learn from the knowledge, strength and resilience of Stolen Generations Survivors, Aboriginal Elders and Aboriginal communities.
You can access our apology to the Stolen Generations.