Early Intervention and Prevention Programs

What is Early Intervention?

Early Intervention is characterized by the ability to intervene as early as possible in a child’s life to tackle problems that may have emerged in children and young people that are “in need of additional support.” Early Intervention ensures that everyone can realize their full potential by developing a range of skills we all need to thrive. It is about getting extra, effective, and timely interventions to all youth, allowing them to flourish and preventing harmful and costly long-term consequences.

Early Intervention is defined as programs, practices, and systems that support targeted action to support children and young people, anywhere from conception to early adulthood. Thus, it promotes children and young people the ability to flourish in their own lives and thrive in their communities.

How Does Early Intervention Work?

Early Intervention programs, if delivered at different stages of an individual’s life, can create a virtuous circle, which prepares children and young people for their future lives. This cumulative support ensures that an individual's potential is never limited by their circumstances, but rather fueled by timely opportunity. Recognizing these interventions as a continuous journey, rather than a single event, is the key to unlocking true systemic change.

Alcohol and substance use education, as well as educational programs aimed at developing children’s and young people’s social and emotional skills, should be delivered through the process of a spiral curriculum: a curriculum that, as it develops, revisits basic ideas repeatedly, and builds upon them until the student masters the underlying principles that go with them.