Many agree that early help and early intervention are important to help prevent poverty, homelessness, ill health and future offending.
There is much less agreement on what makes an intervention effective. This is particularly true in the case of law-breaking, where support often arrives at crisis point, or too late, when arrest or prosecution may already be in progress.
Early Help and Early Intervention, by Eliza Ogden Barnsley and Dr Tom McNeil at the JABBS Foundation for Women and Girls, reviews the evidence on early help interventions that have been implemented, to identify the features most closely associated with good outcomes. Drawing from an initial pool of more than 5,000 sources, it analyses 68 studies in depth, including work by academics, charities, think tanks and evaluators.
The report identifies 18 key characteristics of successful early help interventions across four categories:
- Collaborative Partnerships – working across services to deliver integrated, multi-faceted support.
- User-Focused Approaches – prioritising relationships, trust and individual needs.
- Valued Staff – ensuring well-trained, supported and consistent practitioners.
- Structural Foundations – embedding strong governance, evaluation and adaptability.
The positive outcomes reported fell into six areas: service user wellbeing, educational attainment, mental health, child safeguarding, parenting and family, and wider systems change.
Interventions combining several of the 18 key characteristics were more likely to deliver positive outcomes across more than one area.
The report concludes by exploring the implications of, and practical actions for, funders and commissioners, frontline stakeholders, policymakers, and researchers.
