This paper reports on the Families Commission’s work on early intervention with a focus on early intervention and support for vulnerable families and whānau.
Families and whānau need different levels and intensity of intervention or support at different times as their circumstances change. Their needs are likely to increase at transition points in their lives, and may be met by community-based, universal, targeted or intensive remedial services. Vulnerable families and whānau often experience problems that can reduce their capacity to function effectively. Many of these issues will be intergenerational and occur across various parts or ‘branches’ of the family and can impact on child development and wellbeing outcomes.
Key Results
The most vulnerable families and whānau are diverse and may need more than one form of service provision and support. Many have chronic, mutating difficulties, demanding different forms of input at different times. Though the families and whānau may appear chaotic, some will have adapted to function outside the accepted norms of behaviour. They may, intentionally or unintentionally, appear to play organisations off against each other.
Vulnerable families and whānau often experience problems that can reduce their capacity to function effectively. These problems can include substance abuse, criminal behaviour, accommodation difficulties, poverty, unemployment, mental health problems, violence, neglect and abuse, and poor education. Individual family members may also experience learning difficulties, personality disorders or psychiatric problems (such as alcohol or drug abuse, schizophrenia or severe depression), or they may have experienced abuse in their own childhood. Many of these issues will be intergenerational and occur across various parts or ‘branches’ of the family.
Risk factors have a multiplying or cumulative effect. Any single risk factor makes a relatively modest contribution to individual risk. Exposure to one or two risk factors, unless they are extreme, is unlikely to have a negative impact on a child’s development. Having four or more risk factors, however, can lead to a tenfold increase in the probability of poor outcomes for children in childhood and later in life, irrespective of their cause. Such factors include stress, ill health, drug abuse, mental health problems, poverty, lack of social support and poor housing.