This meeting was a personal indulgence to some extend in getting back to one of my passions - early childhood development. Professor Melhuish (or Ted as he insisted) has been producing work for many years which shows the efficacy of universal (though voluntary) full time pre-school for children three years and upwards. Of course governments (even those who say they are interested in evidence) are not always going to follow the recommendations of an academic institute. Interestingly once the moment had been picked (being during the time of the previous Labour government in Britain) the programme has stuck and survived an incoming conservative government coming in on a overt cost cutting agenda. Not only did the new conservative government not cut they scheme they expanded it, reaching out to two year olds from the most deprived 40 % of families.
Interestingly The Prof will be amongst the first to see what effect that will have as he is undertaking a Longtitudinal study of the first children to go through the programme and their cohorts that didn't have access to it the previous year. Incidentally the take up rate in the UK (which is just about identical to all other Northern European countries) is just over 98%.
Ted has met with the Australian Productivity Commission to make this point for the upcoming report on child care. I wonder if developing data about the increased productivity of having parents back in the workforce wouldn't be more persuasive.
We also talked at length about the ground where family support programmes and child protection meet as Ted has been advising the NSW Health Department on some of their early prevention programmes. One of Ted's colleagues is currently trialling "Family Nurse" where a nurse is assigned at first knowledge of pregnancy and remains involved for the first year of life.
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