'I believe the government is committed to early intervention'

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Following the launch of the Centre for Social Justice's report 'Making sense of early intervention', we talk to Gracia McGrath OBE, chief executive of Chance UK, about what works on the ground.

There have been a wealth of reports released on early intervention lately. The Centre for Social Justice report is called, 'Making sense of early intervention' – is it about making sense of what is out there and in a way going back to basics?

It absolutely is. It is a kind of idiot's guide for local authorities, although I am sure they won't appreciate me using that term. When you have a wealth of material looking at the theory and the theoretical approaches, you also need to come up with a practical approach.

So we have the theory and the dense research, and here is how you put it into practice. So I think 'Making sense of early intervention' is the natural next step and, for local authorities, it could be their working guide.

I know some local authorities have taken the Allen review's 19 models for early intervention as completely prescriptive. The report says to look beyond specific programmes to an overall approach: do local authorities need to look at their area and see what works for their community?

What I would say in terms of the 19 models is that many of those don't exist in this country as of yet; they have been tried and tested elsewhere. Now the thing about that is that they would still need to be tried and tested in this country.

So let's say you have a model, say the model that we have here at Chance UK. When we exported that to Liverpool which was our first social franchise, we needed to know that it actually worked in Liverpool. We needed to have a pilot with our partner agency Action for Children, to see if it translated well in the area.

If you are talking about needing to do that from one inner city to another, you need to times-that by 1000 when you are talking about bringing something across the Atlantic. There are big cultural differences and they still need to be tried and tested.

I think Iain Duncan Smith's message at the launch of the CSJ report yesterday was incredibly clear. It was that there are those 19 programmes, but they are not the be all and end all of what is there. Look around and see what is already operating both in your area and similar areas to your own, that are getting results, and look at whether they might be the most appropriate thing to import to your area.

You spoke about Chance UK's work with Action for Children. The report talks about a multi-agency approach – how important is partnership-working in driving early intervention forward?

Partnership work is essential – local authorities, charities big and small and education departments all working together in the interests of the child. The only way that we are really going to make a difference is if people look at the child as the focus, not their agency as the focus, and work together for the best benefits of the child.

There are some great examples of this out there. What you will see when you have proper partnership work is you get a better outcome for that child.

Let's not forget safeguarding boards were set up so that children didn't slip through the net, and a key part of the boards was that they were multi-agency.

So for the safety of children and to create positive outcomes for children, all of these services need to take a multi-agency approach.

In recent reports there has been a real focus on the early years. Chance UK doesn't focus on early years; do you think it needs to be drummed home that early intervention is the whole package, from minus 9 months to 18 years?

Absolutely, we don't negate that early years are incredibly important; all the evidence points towards the importance of bonding in those first few years, and the importance of brain growth.

Those things are very real and we do need to work with those families when we can get them, when they need it at that time.

However, there are some families who, even if they need that support at that time, do not come to the attention of the authorities in those early years. Firstly, for those who have had a difficult start in life, they are not called hard-to-reach families for no reason. When the children of those families start school, it might be the first time agencies have been able to have access to that child, to look at how that child is functioning and to offer additional support to that child. That is one aspect of it.

The second aspect of it is about responding to a crisis when it happens, and this could happen at any point in a child's life. The families hit a crisis, it might be divorce, it might be death or it might be abandonment. When that happens the whole family is dealing with it, and somehow the children get lost within it and become in need of additional support.

There are those child-centred changes as well, when a child moves from primary school, they might function well in the primary school setting, but struggle after making the move to a large secondary school. That transition, although Chance UK doesn't work in this field, we recognise it is a really important area in terms of supporting children. Those children who get lost at transition need support at that point. They might have had the best start in life but they get lost when they go through the transition phase.

The same can be said about going through puberty, and God help the poor child if both happen at once.

Some children cope well with that, and just get a bit moody and slam some doors, but for some children it can be a critical and quite dangerous stage for them. They desperately need support at the right time, to be able to function and not go off the rails. So from any point from minus 9 months to 18 years, when the crisis first shows itself, that is when you need to deal with it. Unfortunately, sometimes the right people aren't there when the crisis first shows itself.

In terms of funding, do you see the social investment model as the way forward and has Chance UK started to develop this as a source of funding?

The social investment model is something that Chance UK has been working on for quite some time.

We are still quite a small organisation and we have both individual philanthropists and philanthropic trusts that donate to us. There has been a real interest from them to invest in an organisation, and particularly to invest in an organisation like Chance UK, who can save money for the country and help children have a happy childhood.

Chance UK might find it difficult to engage with the wider sense of the social investment model, where we are talking about payment by results. As a relatively small organisation we wouldn't be able to completely say upfront, we will provide the service and if it is a success, you will pay us.

However, there is an in-between model which is about people providing the services and if they meet their target, they get a bonus. This is a sort of 'semi' payment by results.

As an example, if Chance UK was working to prevent a number of children going to a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU), and we said we could prevent 18 out of 20 children from going to the unit, yet we prevent all 20 going to the unit, we get a bonus.

The local authority has still saved money because our service costs less than a third than it would to send the child to the PRU.

All the reports that have come out have drawn consistent conclusions: must the government now listen?

I think they have to listen, and I think what came out very clearly from Duncan Smith's speech at the report launch yesterday, was that he really believes that the government is listening. Through his chairing of social justice committee, there is a focus on social justice, which cuts across government. And I believe that they are committed to early intervention.

So therefore this model of working early, working right at the time when the difficulties start to show themselves, will become a non-party political approach to how government works, and we would all be a lot better off for it.

Chance UK is an early-intervention charity that reduces crime and anti-social behaviour through one-to-one mentoring with children aged 5-11. Gracia McGrath spoke at the report launch of 'Making sense of early intervention'.