Dinah Morley, deputy director of the mental health charity Young Minds, made her comments following the launch in London of a report on early intervention published by the Mental Health Foundation. The report, by Jacqueline Barnes and Anne-marie Freude-Lagevardi of University College London, said such intervention was vital and targeting at-risk communities, rather than specific families, was more productive and less likely to lead to them being stigmatised and discouraged from seeking help.
Ms Morley said that building on existing universal services, such as Sure Start, was the best route to helping individual families because 'they can set in place a support network in a community which can last a lifetime'.
The Mental Health Foundation report, From Pregnancy to Early Childhood: Early Interventions to Enhance the Mental Health of Children and Families, said that reaching a 'shared understanding of goals' with parents was vital, and that lay workers and professionals working together was central to tackling infant mental health at community level. It added, 'Some studies have found that there was no difference in outcomes between a well-trained lay home visitor and an MSc level professional.
'Early intervention programmes are most effective if they address at least two generations by including services for the child and services for the parent. Pre-and postnatal interventions are effective with weekly contact for the first year.'
Young Minds said it wanted pilot schemes to look at the quality of the relationship between parents before birth and then to look at the young child's subsequent development. Ms Morley added that the 'importance of attachment' within young families was not properly recognised and that health visitors and midwives were often not assigned to families on a consistent basis. She said extra training was needed so these health staff could deal with the emotional as well as practical issues surrounding the birth of a child.
She added, 'It is important that we make it all right for parents to acknowledge that they have difficulties and need help and that they do not feel they will be blamed for recognising they have weaknesses or can't cope.'
The National Early Years Network welcomed the report. Its chief executive, Eva Lloyd, said, 'This is very timely, especially because of home secretary David Blunkett's comments about developmentally-disturbed three-year-olds and early years settings. There needs to be research looking at the wider context of problems with under-fives to identify the factors responsible for young children's distress.'
An executive summary of the report is on the Mental Health Foundation website at www.mentalhealth.org.uk.