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December 06, 2012 at 2:37 PM

A nine year folllow-up evaluation of the Early Start home visiting programme has just been published.

After nine years, children from families provided with Early Start had:

• Lower rates of physical child abuse
• Fewer visits to hospital for injuries
• Parental reports of more positive and less punitive parenting
• Lower rates of childhood behaviour problems

Similar benefits were found for Māori and non-Māori children.

Early Start is a home visiting programme targeted at improving the wellbeing of preschool children living in families facing multiple stresses and challenges. The programme begins in infancy and can be delivered for up to five years. A randomised trial compared 220 families with multiple difficulties who were receiving the Early Start programme with 223 control families, with similar difficulties, who were not in the programme.

Read the University of Otago media release (13 November 2012)

Dowload the Early Start; evaluation report. Nine year follow-up (PDF, 916.17 MB)