What Is Early Intervention? Prevention Services, Evidence and Cost Savings

A plain-English guide to early intervention in children's services: what it means, how early help assessments work, the evidence base, and why acting early costs far less than reactive services.

By Plinth Team

A practitioner sits with a child and family in a supportive setting, representing early intervention work

TL;DR: Early intervention means identifying and supporting children and families before problems escalate into crisis. It is grounded in strong evidence that acting early produces better outcomes for children and costs significantly less than reactive, late-stage services. In England, early help assessments are the formal gateway to co-ordinated support, governed by the statutory framework Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023.

What Early Intervention Means in Practice

Early intervention is the broad approach of identifying risk factors and providing targeted support at the earliest possible point — before difficulties become entrenched or reach the threshold for statutory child protection involvement. The term covers a wide spectrum: universal services such as health visiting and children's centres at one end, and targeted family support programmes at the other.

It is distinct from crisis intervention (responding to immediate harm) and from universal prevention (services available to all regardless of need). Early intervention sits in between: it is proportionate, needs-led, and oriented towards building the capacity of children, parents, and families to manage challenges themselves.

Early Help Assessments

In England, the formal mechanism for co-ordinating early intervention is the Early Help Assessment (EHA), sometimes called a Common Assessment Framework (CAF) in older literature. The EHA is a structured tool used by any practitioner — a teacher, health visitor, family support worker, or youth worker — to identify a child's or family's needs holistically and agree a plan of support with the family's consent.

Under Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 (the statutory guidance for England), local safeguarding partners are required to set out how early help assessments will operate locally, including the appointment of a lead practitioner to co-ordinate support across agencies. The guidance strengthened requirements for multi-agency co-operation and introduced a stronger whole-family focus, emphasising co-operative, trust-based relationships between practitioners and families.

Teams delivering early help often rely on structured Case Management tools to track assessment progress, record consent, and co-ordinate the multiple practitioners involved in a family's plan.

The Evidence Base: What Works and Why It Matters

The strongest body of evidence for early intervention with children and families in the UK has been assembled and synthesised by the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF), which merged with What Works for Children's Social Care in December 2022 to form Foundations — the What Works Centre for Children and Families. Foundations now maintains the Foundations Guidebook, which covers over 130 interventions with at least preliminary evidence of improving outcomes, each rated for impact and confidence in the evidence.

Internationally, the evidence base includes landmark randomised controlled trials. The Perry Preschool Project (USA, 1962–1967) tracked the long-term outcomes of high-quality early education for disadvantaged children: participants showed sustained improvements in educational attainment, employment, income, and rates of criminal activity, with benefits extending to the next generation. The Nurse-Family Partnership, a home visiting programme for first-time mothers in disadvantaged circumstances, has shown consistent effects across multiple randomised trials on child development, parenting behaviour, and maternal health.

In the UK context, programmes such as the Troubled Families / Supporting Families Programme have been evaluated as effective at improving outcomes and offering good value for money, according to a rapid evidence review by the Early Intervention Foundation. Parenting programmes, family group conferencing, restorative practice, and therapeutic mental health interventions all appear in the evidence base with positive findings.

Practitioners delivering evidence-based programmes benefit from tools that can capture structured outcome data over time. Surveys built into a case management platform allow teams to administer validated measures at assessment and at follow-up, making it easier to demonstrate whether an intervention is producing change. This data also feeds directly into Impact Reporting for commissioners and funders.

Stat check: The Foundations Guidebook covers over 130 interventions with at least preliminary evidence of improving children's and families' outcomes. Source: Foundations — About the Guidebook

The Cost Argument: Why Early Action Saves Money

The financial case for early intervention is compelling, and it has been made most forcefully in England by the EIF's landmark cost analysis.

In 2016, the Early Intervention Foundation estimated that nearly £17 billion per year — equivalent to £287 per person — was spent in England and Wales by the state on the costs of late intervention: addressing domestic violence and abuse, child neglect and maltreatment, mental health crises, youth crime, and exclusion from education and employment. Local authorities bore the largest share at £6.4 billion, followed by the NHS at £3.7 billion and the Department for Work and Pensions at £2.7 billion. Source: EIF — The Cost of Late Intervention: EIF Analysis 2016.

More recent data from the NSPCC and the National Children's Bureau shows the trajectory has worsened since then. In 2022/23, for the first time, local authorities in England spent more on children's residential care placements (£2.4 billion) than on all early intervention services combined (£2.2 billion). Spending on late intervention services has increased by £3.6 billion over twelve years (a 57% increase), while spending on early intervention by councils has fallen by almost half. In 2023/24, total children's social care spending in England reached £13.3 billion. Sources: NCB — The Well Worn Path; Gov.uk — Main findings: children's social care in England 2024.

The number of children in care has also risen dramatically: the NSPCC reported in September 2024 that the number of children in care in England had increased by 102% over the preceding twelve years. Source: NSPCC — 102% increase in the number of children in care.

These figures point to a system under structural pressure, driven in significant part by the cumulative effect of under-investment in prevention.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between early intervention and early help?

The terms are often used interchangeably but carry slightly different connotations. Early help is the term used in statutory guidance (Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023) and refers specifically to support provided to children and families with additional needs, below the threshold for a child protection referral. Early intervention is a broader concept encompassing any approach that acts before a problem becomes entrenched — it is used in policy, research, and practice settings. Both are grounded in the same principle: that timely, proportionate support produces better outcomes than waiting for a crisis.

Who carries out an Early Help Assessment?

Any trained practitioner working with children and families can undertake an Early Help Assessment — including teachers, school nurses, health visitors, GPs, youth workers, family support workers, and third-sector practitioners. It is completed with the agreement and active involvement of the child and family. A lead practitioner is then appointed to co-ordinate the multi-agency support plan. The specific process varies by local authority, as each area sets out its own Continuum of Need and threshold guidance.

What happened to the Early Intervention Foundation?

The Early Intervention Foundation (EIF), founded in 2013, merged with What Works for Children's Social Care (WWCSC) in December 2022. The merged organisation is now called Foundations — the What Works Centre for Children and Families. Foundations continues the EIF's work of synthesising evidence, maintaining the intervention guidebook, and supporting local areas to commission and deliver effective programmes. Its website is foundations.org.uk.

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Published by the Plinth Team. Last updated 21 February 2026.