Partners recognise that we need to embed a culture of change, of doing things differently and of starting at the earliest possible point to enable people to have the best opportunities in their lives as well as to safeguard our environment for the future. This is what we mean by adopting an ‘early intervention' approach to our way of working across the Partnership. Our commitment to early intervention is based on practical experience through our services.
This experience has been strengthened through the learning from the first two years of Support from the Start, the East Lothian Equally Well test site 4. The underlying philosophy of Support from the Start is of bringing about health improvements through empowerment; based on a community empowerment model and on services being empowered to work in a different way.
This is not a one-off project but a process to bring about sustainable change in service design and delivery. The Partnership contributed funding to support the learning from Support from the Start and aims to extend this learning across all areas of our work.