Allen (2011a; 2011b) highlighted a number of individual level initiatives, while providing the backdrop for the continued development of this preventative discourse. Whereas Labour heavily invested early on in the concept of social exclusion, the Coalition remained more concerned with the concept of early intervention as a vehicle of prevention. The wider approach to prevention within these reports heavily leans upon early engagement of children, at the earliest stage possible, in order to ensure that they are most likely to pursue positive trajectories. The motivations and methods of such an approach has, however, been heavily criticised by some. The emphasis on parenting is once again strongly significant. Placing early intervention central to the government rhetoric on children and families seemingly provided a smooth transition from the Labour Every Child Matters agenda. However, the wider idiom surrounding this, critics argued, created a fundamentally different discourse for prevention, which appeared to suggest ‘contempt for poor and marginalised families’ (Garrett, 2014: 83). The approach of Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, 2010 to 2014, to early intervention and social work appears to shift to one of wanting to ‘rescue’ children from these poorly performing and socially marginalised parents. In a speech in 2012 he stated:
In all too many cases when we decide to leave children in need with their biological parents we are leaving them to endure a life of soiled nappies and scummy baths, chaos and hunger, hopelessness and despair. These children need to be rescued, just as much as the victims of any other natural disaster. (Gove, 2012)
This additional shift in prevention discourse appears to some critics to further support the rise of the neoliberal ideology set out by Margret Thatcher in 1979 when she infamously stated, ‘there is no such thing as society … only the individual and his family’. The impact on social values that this had was significant. As Couldry (2011) suggests, the pursuit of independence, personal responsibility, self-interest and recognition of the importance and almost sanctity of the market became the commonly held beliefs for maximising the wellbeing of people. Examining the politicisation of relationships within the family sphere, Gillies (2014) argues that these neoliberal values ‘permeated’ through the Labour preventative discourse, setting aside the importance of relationship bonds, love and care in favour of technical approaches to the assessment of ‘parenting skills’. The introduction of parenting orders in Labour’s 1998 Crime and Punishment Disorder Act saw a clear step towards greater involvement of the state in family life, with an apparent assertion that some parents ‘wilfully’ neglected their responsibilities (Grover, 2008). This theme, Gillies argues, has continued into the current government and that this apparent concern for responsible parenting and the children’s wellbeing and protection ‘have been appropriated to justify a highly regulatory approach to family policy, eventually morphing into the distinct doctrine of “early intervention” under the auspices of the [then] current Conservative-led Coalition government’ (Gillies, 2014: 205). This suggests a view of intervention being more about the individual, focusing on personal decisions rather than being the victim of structural inequalities. Gillies further develops this argument by suggesting that the prevention discourse, in continuing to move towards a neoliberal understanding of early intervention, is used as a ‘political rallying point’, targeting poor families to break a perceived cycle of deprivation, while in practice personalising and normalising inequality by making individual parents accountable, under the auspices of caring about children’s wellbeing. As Gillies states: ‘in cementing a broader shift away from state support towards a social investment model, the principle of early intervention marks an ideological convergence between traditional conservatism and economic liberalism, galvanising a cross-party political consensus in the process’ (2014: 205). However, she further suggests that this doctrine is increasingly unstable, based on poor ideas, lack of evidence-based policy and the pursuit of ideological policy.
Reay (2012) argues that the cultural context surrounding parenting and child wellbeing increasingly embraces this individualistic and competitive neoliberal approach with ‘good’ parents being increasingly the ‘good’ consumer, evaluating services and products with rigour and pursuing all avenues to ensure that their child succeeds. This ideology of ‘parentocracy’ presented by Reay focuses on the perceived gold-standard of parenting which is largely child-centred, gender specific and heavily reliant upon mothers nurturing children’s emotional wellbeing and self-confidence. Such an approach ensured class-specific approaches were ‘held to account for the social and structural positions they reflect’ (Gillies, 2014: 211). However, Gillies goes on to argue that most of the central claims that support the parent-centric approach dominating preventative discourse, remain unproven and undefined. This includes Alan Milburn over-claiming Blanden’s (2006) research citing that ‘parenting is four times more influential than socio-economic background’, though regularly re-printed in the media and used to support policy decisions, the original evidence source does not actually suggest this link as starkly (Gillies, 2014). Feinstein’s (2003) study included a secondary analysis of a cohort of people born in the 1970s and relayed interesting findings about the significance of class from an early age in determining outcomes for children. However, there was no identified link to the impact of parenting in this data. Perhaps most famously was Allen’s (2011a) complete misrepresentation of longitudinal neuroscience studies, which he claimed demonstrated the huge and significant impact of neglect on a child’s brain development. The study in fact was based upon extreme cases of neglect far beyond that of the reach of early intervention services. However, Allen visually and literally used this research to suggest significant links between ‘poor’ parenting and a child’s physical development in Early intervention: The next steps (2011a), and was subsequently accused as using a ‘scientific vehicle for public relations campaign to promote early childhood programs more for rhetorical, than scientific reasons’ (Bruer, 2011: 2). However, this research continued to be widely cited in the media though the premise was proved flawed. Furthermore, the continuation of a ‘scientific’ approach to early intervention continues to be part of the early intervention discourse, for example as Allen states: ‘Too few of the Early Intervention Programmes currently being tried in the UK have been rigorously evaluated, making it difficult for the public sector and impossible for the private sector to invest with any confidence’ (2011a: 68).
Thus, there has been a focus on randomised controlled trials to ‘prove’ the impact of certain interventions and to demonstrate