The Families Commission developed these principles as a guide for assessing whether programmes have the potential to be effective forms of early intervention based on a review of available literature, research and evaluations of programmes and services on early intervention internationally and in New Zealand.
Alongside the principles we developed a set of questions that could be applied to a programme or service to test their actual or potential effectiveness as forms of early intervention. The questions are not intended as a means of evaluating a programme, although the resulting information could contribute to evaluation findings.
It should be noted that all of the work undertaken on developing the principles has been paper-based. In order to assure their accuracy and validity the principles and supporting questions need to be further tested with programme providers and families. As these principles are still evolving we welcome comments.