Helping children and families
Prevention and early intervention
Prevention and early intervention strategies provide targeted support to vulnerable children and families to prevent them from entering or escalating in the child protection system.
Services like home visiting, supported playgroups and access to child care can all help families who have young children and who face specific problems such as domestic violence, drug or alcohol misuse, mental health issues, lack of support, parental learning difficulties or intellectual disability or child behaviour management problems.
DoCS’ early intervention program also promotes healthy childhood development through access to quality early childhood education and support programs which promote strong and well-supported families.
DoCS uses a strengths-based approach to help recognise that parents already have skills and expertise when it comes to understanding what works for their families.
An important goal of prevention and early intervention is to build family resilience by increasing the effect of protective behaviours to outweigh the risk factors. Prevention and early intervention strategies complement the strategies to build resilience and reduce risk factors that can contribute to abuse and neglect outlined in chapter 1
