Early intervention is vital

It is with a grim recognition that I realise I have become an angry man. I don’t like being angry, but despite my better judgement, it appears that this is the only way of getting anything done for children. Constantly badgering others and complaining now seems to be a central part of my role. Not in nurseries where staff need to take on an ever increasing range of roles from counsellor to therapist, but in the services that should offer support and mitigate against a lack of success and opportunity.

Where early identification and referral should be welcomed, I find myself fighting a rising tide of inaction and lack of response from the services that should be desperate to ensure children receive appropriate input. Rising thresholds for early support demonstrate the total lack of forward thinking in preventative services. I am aghast at the complete stupidity of not thinking ahead. In every aspect of life, we understand that early action prevents disaster at a later date. Imagine seeing a leak at a nuclear reactor and thinking: ‘Oh well, we’ll see how that pans out over the next few years.’

The early years is the perfect time to intervene. It prevents problems from becoming so much more serious. In simple terms, think of the children signed off from speech therapy who so obviously need input and the impact on their future life opportunities. How can you access a predominantly language-based curriculum when you struggle to communicate? How does this impact on the precious phonics test?

So many of the services around the earliest years of life are being dismantled or neglected and I am so sick of the assumption that people don’t matter when they are very young. It is blindingly obvious. Disadvantage starts young, the ‘gap’ starts young, so adequate, ring-fenced funding should start young.

Why is regulation not tailor made to follow the co-ordination of services rather than inspect the individual parts? Wouldn’t it be more useful if we looked at the range of services and their impact instead of seeing aspects in isolation?

We don’t need more research projects – they prove what we already know. What we need is investment. Investment into adequate services and into the workforce. When you earn more working at Lidl than in a nursery, there is something wrong with the system. How does the situation improve without the quality staff to implement all the good ideas?