Innovation through "subtraction"

The latest edition of the Journal of Children’s Services appears as impending cuts to frontline services loom on the horizon and in the midst of media excitement and public nervousness about the forthcoming UK general election.

In it, UK MPs Graham Allen and Iain Duncan Smith, from opposing parties, appeal for an apolitical approach to prevention and early intervention to sustain and develop recent small gains. Amongst other proposals they argue for a National Policy Assessment Centre for Early Intervention and a financial instrument ‘to raise money against the massive savings accrued by effective early intervention’.
 
Carolyn Webster-Stratton and Jamila Reid describe an experiment to adapt the evidence-based Incredible Years parenting progamme for families in the child welfare system. June Thoburn cautions about the need also to learn more about the impact of what she calls ‘services as usual’ and not to assume that manualised programmes like Incredible Years mould have all the answers.
 
Editors Michael Little and Nick Axford tie the articles together by arguing that ‘most innovation involves addition but there is also a spirit of innovation to be built on “subtraction”. If services must be withdrawn, they might be withdrawn in a sufficiently intelligent way that we find out more about their impact on child outcomes.’ Only this, they suggest, will protect recent gains in developing and implementing evidence-based services and permit continued investment in this area.
 
Follow this link to access the journal online.