Assessing the model of early assessment and intervention adopted by the Scottish Borders Council's Early Years Assessment Team

The key aim of this research is to describe and assess the services and support made available to parents by the Team, considering professionals’ and parents’ views about these services and support and their impact on parents and their parenting skills; as well as on the work carried out by other services with parents.

The objectives of the research are to:

1) describe the early assessment and intervention model adopted by the Team;
2) describe how the model is implemented, identifying key stages and learning points, and consider how this could be transferred into other settings;
3) identify the characteristics and circumstances of the families that are referred to and supported by the team and consider the relationship between these, the support offered and outcomes for children (i.e. whether they remained at home, whether the child has been registered on the Child Protection Register, and so on) and parents (i.e. have their expectations of the program been met, do they feel the program has had a positive impact on their parenting capacity, and so on); and
4) explore families and professionals views and opinions about the model and services in place and the impact these have.

In doing so the research will also be contributing to one of the priority areas identified by the Early Years Framework (2008: 29), namely, the need for “developing a systematic way of recording, reviewing and learning from innovation and evidence. A particular area that partners are keen to see developed is the evidence base around parenting support and parenting interventions.”