What is early intervention?
Childhood adversity, including maltreatment and neglect during the early years of childhood have been linked to long term mental health difficulties and child behaviour problems. These experiences place children at higher risk of negative outcomes during adolescence and adulthood. Interventions aimed at reducing this risk primarily focus on teaching parents parenting and behaviour management skills, that empower parents or caregivers to address difficult child behaviours, resulting in improvements in parent-child relationships and child social and educational outcomes.
Research indicates that younger children respond more quickly and more effectively to such interventions, possibly due to improvements in self-esteem from educational attendance and therefore attainment and less time for behaviours to become habitual.