Learning from Practice: An Early Years Intervention

An Early Years Intervention That is Making a Difference in Newport

The BA Early Years Education and Care is designed for those who want to work with, children, families, or in related fields. A strength of the course is its focus on learning from practice and Ken Dicks, a lecturer on the programme, shares how the teaching team’s links help to inform their teaching as well as support projects in the community.

As well as being a Lecturer in Early Years Education and Care at UWTSD I am lucky enough to be a member of the National Advisory Board (NAB) for Barnardo’s Cymru. In this role I am part of a team that supports the Senior Management team of Barnardo’s Cymru in regard to the Corporate Strategy and to advise and challenge them on the delivery of services as well as providing specific support to projects and services. 

Recently, members of the NAB, and Breid O’Brien, our link Trustee visited Baby & Me, an inspiring partnership between Barnardo’s and Newport City Council. The service provides support to parents from 12 weeks into pregnancy until six months after birth, in situations where there are safeguarding concerns for the unborn child and a potential risk of the baby being removed from parental care at birth.

Our visit coincided with a Teddy Bear’s Picnic, one of the regular events held by the team to allow parents and babies to socialise with each other, and it was moving to hear the stories of families whose lives had been positively changed by the project. The strong sense of trust and support between staff and families came through clearly in stories such as that told by one mum who related how one of the workers had sat with her for four hours in triage to help her to negotiate the complexities of the process.

Internal evaluation of the programme has shown that “In the 22 months following the first birth of an infant to mother/parents working with Baby and Me, our analysis found a 31% reduction in the number of infants entering care in Newport within 14 days of birth” (Barnardo’s Cymru, 2022). This demonstrates how the service is helping to meet the Welsh Government’s stated aim to deliver a “reduced need for children to enter care and increased use of family reunification for care experienced children” (Welsh Government, 2019, p.11). The amazing results are due to the hard work of the team, which consists of Barnardo’s staff and staff from the Newport City Council Social Care team working alongside each other and in collaboration with Midwives and Health Visitors.

The value of this integrated model for health and social care is emphasised in research by de Matos et al (2024) in their paper ‘Implementation and impact of integrated health and social care services: an umbrella review’ where they state that it can promote “significant improvements in access and availability of services”. The importance of such work is also recognised in legislation such as the Children and Families (Wales) Measure (2010) which provides a framework for “establishing integrated family support teams” and “improving standards in social work for children and persons who care for them” in Wales.

The success of the service was recognised in 2024 when Social Care Wales, the statutory regulation and inspection body for social care in Wales, awarded the team the ‘Working In Partnership’ Award. Social Care Wales recognised that the service’s “specialist interventions include services that support expectant parents whose babies are at risk of being born into care, a rapid response team that helps prevent family breakdowns, and forums where the young people and parents it supports can get involved in coproducing the partnership’s developments”. The fact that the service has been recognised for including the ideas of families and young people in its planning is in line with the Welsh Government’s Radical Reform agenda which states that “We will work closely with care experienced children and young people, and those organisations which support them to have their voices heard” (Welsh Government, 2023, p.10).

The staff involved in the service explained that the success of the project was due, not only to the fact that practitioners worked and planned together, but also that they focused on building on the strengths of the families as well as involving them in shaping the programme, as acknowledged by Social Care Wales in its citation. This way of working, which has been called the Empowerment–Participation–Strengths (EPS) model, has been recognised as best practice by researchers such as Ping Kwong Kam in the British Journal of Social Work, when they state that such approaches can play a role in “strongly affirming service users’ strengths, promoting service users’ participation and focusing on helping service users empower themselves and others” (Kam, 2021). It was clear, when taking part in the picnic that the bonds that had developed the service and between families had given the participants a sense of belonging in line with the EPS model of working.

This enlightening visit is an illustration of the way in which the links between the Early Years and Care team at UWSTD and current provision can be mutually beneficial. The learning and information gathered during the visit will enhance the teaching on the programme and we are also exploring ways in which UWSTD can support the programme through research and evaluation in line with Kam’s (2021) call for “Further research […] to determine its [the EPS approach] capacity to respond more broadly to the changes and development of social work practice”.

References:

Barnardo’s Cymru (2022) Evaluation of the Baby and Me Service Available at: Baby & Me | Barnardo’s

Children and Families (Wales) Measure (2010), nawm 1, Cardiff: Senedd Available at: Children and Families (Wales) Measure 2010 

de Matos, R.C. et al. (2024) ‘Implementation and impact of integrated health and social care services: an umbrella review’.  Journal of Public Health Policy  Vol.45, pp.14–29 Available at: Implementation and impact of integrated health and social care services: an umbrella review | Journal of Public Health Policy 

Kam, P.K. (2021) ‘From the Strengths Perspective to an Empowerment–Participation–Strengths Model in Social Work Practice’, The British Journal of Social Work, 51(4), pp. 1425–1444. Available at: From the Strengths Perspective to an Empowerment–Participation–Strengths Model in Social Work Practice | The British Journal of Social Work | Oxford Academic

Social Care Wales (2025) 2024 Accolades awards ceremony, winners and finalists Available at: 2024 Accolades awards ceremony, winners and… | Social Care Wales

Welsh Government (2019) Report: Reducing the number of children in need of care Available at: Reducing the number of children in need of care | GOV.WALES

Welsh Government (2023) A declaration of radical reform for children and young people’s care Available at: A declaration of radical reform for children and young people’s care | GOV.WALES

Further Information

Eleri Beynon

Head
Corporate Communications and PR
Email: e.beynon@uwtsd.ac.uk
Phone: 01267 676790