Facts and Figures
Dunedin Study
The New Zealand study followed a group of children born in 1972 until the age of 21. At the age of three, nurses were able to identify an ‘at risk’ group of males and these were compared with the rest of the group at age 21.
Compared to the lower risk group it was found that the ‘at risk’ group had more than twice as many people with two or more criminal convictions and three times as many people with antisocial personality. Half of the ‘at risk’ group had committed violent offences compared to nearly a fifth of the other group. Forty seven percent of the ‘at-risk’ group abused their partners compared to nine and a half percent of the other group. [Source: WAVE Report]
Costs
Violence costs the UK more than £20 billion per year. A report by the Institute of Psychiatry contrasted a £600 per child cost of parent training programmes with an estimated £70,000 per head direct cost to the public of children with severe conduct disorder. [Source WAVE Report]
Estimated weekly costs without early intervention [Source: Oxpip]
- Residential Family Centre (Parent and Baby): £3,800
- In-county foster placement (Mother and Baby): £600
- Therapeutic residential school for child: £2,900
- Out of county residential children’s home: £2,500
Nurse Family Partnership
The Nurse Family Partnership has already been going in the US. It is a home visiting programme which uses highly educated nurses who make 33 visits to ‘at risk’ families.
The visits begin before birth and continue until the child is two. Key elements include support for emotional attunement and non-violent parenting. [Source WAVE Report]
WAVE CEO, George Hosking said: “It is a very intensive form of health visiting for parents who are having their first child. For a period of 6 months before the birth of the baby and for two years after, a health visitor comes on a fortnightly basis to the home and works very closely with the parents, particularly the mother helping her to handle all the issues in her life much more successfully that she would otherwise.
“In the US where the programme was evaluated it cut child abuse by 50 percent and it cut criminal offending by the male children of the families it helped by 80 percent.
“We managed as of the beginning of last year to get that programme piloted in the UK and as of later this year there will be 30 pilot studies of that programme running in the UK.”