Socially Disadvantaged Children in Day Care – Intervention and Effect

Jill Mehlbye 

Summary

This report contains the main results from a research project on Intervention concerning social­ly disadvantaged children in day care. The project was commissioned by the Danish Ministry of Social Welfare. The data used in the report were collected between March 2007 and September 2008.

The purpose of the project was to investigate:

• the type and number of interventive measures and the number of socially disadvantaged children in day care,
• the form such measures take in practice,
• the effect on the children of such measures and the methods used.

Our research shows that local authorities invest a high level of activity regarding socially disadvantaged children in day care. Most have included the special needs of socially disadvantaged children as one of their child-care objectives, and there is particular focus on preventive measures, early intervention and the aim that such intervention should be based on the resources possessed by the child and not its weak points. At the same time a paradigm shift is taking place. Instead of focusing on the individual child and its weaknesses, the focus is now on the child’s own resources and on the familial and social context in which the child lives. On the one hand, this means developing an inclusive form of day care based on the child’s resources and abilities, on the other hand it entails supporting the parents as parents.

However, these goals — even if they have been formulated — are relatively broadly worded, and this makes an evaluation of intervention on political, administrative and day-care levels correspondingly broad and inexact.

Local authorities are trying new initiatives to improve their performance in the above area, but at the same time traditional remedial education targeted at the individual child still enjoys the highest political priority. But it is precisely special needs teachers whom local authorities are working to use in another, better fashion, such as having them act as consultants for day-care centres, or working with an entire group of children in an individual day-care centre.

Intervention in the case of socially disadvantaged children involves several different people from different departments/units. This is particularly true of consultant psychologists and case workers in the social welfare office. However, such interdisciplinary co-operation does not work as well as it might, as case workers from the social welfare offices do not often form part of the formal interdisciplinary framework of co-operation. This means that such co-operation risks being counter-productive.

The investigation also shows that often intervention is not co-ordinated with other measures aimed at the child and its family. It also shows that a number of local authorities do not compile a common interdisciplinary description of the child’s social conditions when the intervention is carried out. Neither does a common interdisciplinary plan for the intervention as a whole exist when a new intervention is launched. This can be interpreted as meaning that each measure is taken separately by each individual department/sector and has no coherence with other measures concerning the child and its family.

Informal co-operation between the various departments appears to work better. However, this is dependent upon personal relationships and contacts.

When we look at the overall picture, it is important to be aware that this investigation began less than a year after a major reform of local government in Denmark, so we are dealing with new municipalities who are still searching for "a leg to stand on".

A major challenge for the new municipalities will be to co-ordinate their measures more successfully. Another challenge will be to set up targets for various levels. A third challenge will be giving higher priority to early intervention, making it possible to prevent children from socially disadvantaged homes from developing problems in the first place. This could be done by using inclusive educational methods to strengthen the child’s development and supporting the parents at an early stage.

Such a vision requires the various departments and sectors to work closely together at an early stage to find which children are at risk. It also means that local authorities will have to reverse their priorities and concentrate their resources on early prevention. This requires local authorities to have an overall view of the amount spent on this area and the number of socially disadvantaged children in the municipality in order to allow better economic control and to fix an order of priority. Such an overall vision at municipal level does not exist today. Creating one is possibly local authorities' greatest challenge.

This project was carried out in co-operation among AKF, Danish Institute of Governmental Research, the Danish School of Education (DPU), University of Aarhus, NIRAS Consultants and UdviklingsForum.

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