five - Case studies of interests at play

Summary

In the previous chapter we provided an overarching view of the interests involved in early years intervention, focusing on the key interest groups of politicians, business and professionals. In this chapter we present case studies of three high-profile organisations in the field of early intervention that illustrate and elaborate on the interlinked nature of interests and ideas. The first case study foregrounds the activities of the highly influential campaigning and policy advocate organisation, Wave Trust. As we have demonstrated already, the Wave Trust has played a formative role in promoting brain based early intervention narratives in the context of British politics. Here we reveal the nature and extent of their involvement across the three interest groups, exemplifying what Stephen Ball and Carolina Junemann's classify as ‘boundary spanning’:

Some people (or organisations) who occupy multiple positions and who are adept in the arts of networking act as nodes; they join things up and “span boundaries”.… In doing so they accumulate valuable information and move ideas and influences between sectors. (2012: 10)

We explore in detail how Wave Trust assumes the role of a nodal actor in embedding and diffusing early intervention policy narratives.

Our second case study centres on a linked early intervention programme: the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP). The proclaimed success of the FNP has been key to the growth of early intervention as a policy doctrine. The FNP present themselves as having ‘one of the strongest evidence bases of any childhood preventitive [sic] programme.’ This claim to proven impact has made it the programme of choice for a wide range of early intervention advocates including the Wave Trust, the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF), the Sutton Trust, Labour MP Graham Allen, as well as the consecutive Conservative Governments. In this sense, the programme spans sector and political boundaries. In this chapter we take a closer look at the FNP's origins, operating structure, practices, network of supporters and evidence claims in the context of underwhelming results from a UK-based randomised controlled trial (RCT).

Our third case study explores the prominence of the charity Parent Infant Partnerships United Kingdom (PIPUK) in early intervention prescriptions – another nodal actor.