Early Intervention: The Next Steps

Graham Allen's review was published this week. It can be found at:

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/early-intervention-next-steps.pdf

We made our own contribution to it and it was good to see the following sentence on page 48

"Health and early years services need to do more to ensure that expectant mothers and fathers are offered high-quality community-based preparation for parenthood that includes learning about the needs of babies during pregnancy and early life and how to make the successful transition to parenthood."

At last there is recognition that expectant fathers, as well as expectant mothers, should be offered some means of preparation for fatherhood. Perhaps our new course can become part of that provision. But the fact that the word 'father' appeared nearly EIGHT times less frequently than the word 'mother' suggests that policy makers still have some way to go.