The Better Start experiment

"On discovering in 2013 that her then 10 year old had been asked to complete a 69 question survey in class time online without her explicit consent, Dee (Thomas) investigated the background to what she and many others immediately recognised as a state intrusion into private family life...."

"Along the way Dee discovered from the ICO that the survey data was in fact being collected to enable local Scottish councils to meet their obligations to the forthcoming "Named Person" provisions to be introduced into Scots Law in 2016. Dee is now an active participant in the No2NP campaign. "

"Dee also discovered an adaptation of Evidence2Success project is now extended into England in areas of poverty under the BIG Lottery Better Start project and she is challenging BIG to explain their stated plans to fund epigenetic testing (Buccal swabs /hair cuttings from small babies) only in areas of multiple deprivation. Dee feels ethically the "science" behind epigenetic testing is in itself very new, complex and unproven, that future implications of testing are as yet unknown and that asking young, often vulnerable pregnant women for consent to test their babies poses serious issues relating to the obtaining of freely given fully informed consent."

http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/speaker_detail/9062

On their website we are informed that the Better Start initiative aims to improve the life chances of over 60,000 babies and young children in England. "They are investing £215 million from the Big Lottery fund into five local authorities: "Nottingham, Southend-on-Sea, Lambeth, Blackpool and Bradford. The five local partnerships will use up to £50m each to redesign local services to test science and evidence-based approaches focussing on three key areas: social and emotional development, nutrition and communication and language development."

So Better Start are looking to build up the evidence base to back up the early interventionist approach. People need to know that the Big Lottery Fund is being used for a giant social experiment which has severe consequences for the targeted population, many of whom are being set up to lose their children.

They go on: "Better Start have appointed the Social Research Unit at Dartington to support their (project)." This is the same organisation which the Scottish government commissioned for their surveys. Small world, isn`t it ?

We are further informed that "The Big Lottery Fund is not alone in investing in this policy area; in England, the Troubled Families programme aims to turn around the lives of the 120,000 most `troubled families` and has recently been further extended to engage a further 400,000 families; whilst in Wales, Families First aims to develop effective multi-agency approaches to improve outcomes for families...Many are implementing `tried and tested` approaches such as having a `key worker` that acts as a single point of contact for the family."

They do not say where this has been `tried and tested` but a `single point of contact` is the same role assigned to the `named person` in Scotland.

Better Start say that there will be a `systems change` in the way that local health, public services and the voluntary sector work together to put prevention in early life at the heart of service delivery and practice.

`Systems change` is an interesting turn of phrase.

English authorities may be approaching this from a slightly different perspective but the `systems change` is delivering the same prevention/early intervention agenda as in Scotland. It`s quite sinister. 

http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/betterstart

See http://www.fassit.co.uk/pdf/Contested%20Adoption%20-%20The%20Social%20Engineering%20of%20Families.pdf