The Early Start, early intervention and home visiting programme is designed to meet the individual and cultural needs of Christchurch families, with newborn babies, and who are also experiencing varied challenges and difficulties in their lives. EarlyStart has incorporated in its programme design proven criteria and principles from the well-established Hawaiian Healthy Start home visitors programme.

The Early Start pilot project was first established in 1995 to examine the feasibility of setting up such an intensive family support and home visiting programme. The results of this pilot study were sufficiently promising to set up a randomised Field Trial in 1999 to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme.

Early Start family support workers are drawn relevant professional backgrounds and have undergone further training enabling them to work sensitively and competently with families facing overwhelming challenges. The Royal NZ Plunket Society is currently the designated referral agency.

he Early Start progamme is based around recurring problems and issues, and addresses the following themes: Child health and safety, Child development, Care and protection, Parenting skills Maternal well-being, Family social functioning, Family economic functioning, Crisis management

WHO CAN BE PART OF EARLY START HOME VISITING PROGRAMME?

The Early Start Project is available to families with newborn babies living in the Christchurch area.Families agreeing to begin the Early Start programme will be visited by the family support worker to assess the mothers /fathers need for additional services over and above those already offered by the Plunket Service and other community agencies.

Families who may be facing two or more of the following challenges will be offered the Early Start home visiting service:

• Very young maternal age, Economic disadvantage, Compromised social skills
• Psychiatric history, Drug and alcohol issues, Insufficient support systems
• Past Department of Child,Youth and Family Services involvement
• Partnership conflict

HOW DOES EARLY START ASSIST FAMILIES?

A family support worker is assigned to a family to assist with any stressful situations currently challenging the mother/fathers ability to care and provide for their newborn baby and (or) children.

The family support worker works with the family and:

Visits the family at home in a caring and supportive way, Works with the mother/father to recognise and utilise their own strengths, Provides information about the care and development of babies and children, Facilitates the process of finding solutions to everyday difficulties when they arise and become troublesome, Helps to strengthen the family bond, Assists with access to other community and medical services if needed.

An important feature of Early Start is that family support is based on the individual needs of each client family, and this intensive, long-term, needs based programme is available to enrolled families until the enrolled child enters the school system.