FASD Informed Social Care Support
Best Practice in Early Intervention
'Social Work is about life, treasuring humanity, building connections, sharing, and promoting fairness … A social worker should be someone to trust and someone to believe in – someone who helps you believe in yourself”.
Dr Ruth Allen, BASW Chief Executive
Early intervention means identifying and providing effective early support to children and young people who are vulnerable, have overlapping needs and are at risk of poor outcomes.
Early intervention for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) cannot cure the condition as it is irreversible brain damage, but it can significantly improve a child's long-term outcomes by addressing the physical, cognitive, and behavioural symptomatic challenges that result from prenatal alcohol exposure.
This involves an early diagnosis, followed by a multidisciplinary team providing therapies like speech, sensory integration occupational, and physical therapy, along with strategies to support learning, social skills, and overall functioning.
Good practice in Social Care includes being 'alcohol curious' in every case review, where together a multi-disciplinary team can significantly change outcomes for families by using early intervention techniques.
In order to really make change happen 'rule FASD in',
How can Social Care help?
Ask yourself these questions.....
1. Has the child or adult been exposed to prenatal alcohol?
2. How can I become 'FASD Informed' to be FASD Responsive?
3. Could the child I support have likely Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder?
4. How do I get essential 'FASD Informed' Social Care Professional training
5. Should we 'rule FASD in' first to be responsive to provide personalised care?
6. Why do I need to refer for a specialist mental capacity assessment?
In some areas of the UK research statistics show that up to 75% of children in care and leaving it will have been exposed to alcohol in the womb....
'Ruling it in' enables multi-disciplinary teams to look at early strategies to support overlapping needs, anticipate the divergence away from peers, help families and professionals to 'tune in' and encourage strengths, act swiftly to consult with specialists to signpost to assessments and actively change the tide of cases that end stuck, at edge of care or children returning to care.
What is early intervention?
Take pause to watch this 2-minute introduction to early intervention and the role it plays in providing support for the children, young people and families who need it most.
Click the image below to play the clip:
How does it work?
Early intervention works to reduce the risk factors and increase the protective factors in a child’s life.
We have a good understanding of the risk factors that can threaten children’s development, limit future social and economic opportunities, and increase the likelihood of mental and physical health problems, criminal involvement, substance misuse, or exploitation or abuse in later life.
These factors exist at different levels within the child’s environment – at the individual, family, community and society level – and interact in complex ways.
Early intervention approaches often focus on supporting four key aspects of child development – their physical, cognitive, behavioural, and social and emotional development – where it has the potential to make the biggest difference and provide benefits throughout a person’s life.
Protective factors are the characteristics or conditions of individuals, families, communities and society that can mitigate these risks and increase the health and wellbeing of children and families.
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Physical development involves children’s physical health, maturation and the presence or absence of a physical disability, and it provides the basis for positive development in all other areas. Physical outcomes targeted by early intervention activities include improving birth outcomes, reducing the incidence of infectious diseases and decreasing childhood obesity.
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Cognitive development includes children’s acquisition of speech and language skills, their ability to read and write, their numeracy capabilities and their understanding of logical problem-solving. Positive cognitive development is strongly associated with a child’s success in school and entry into the workforce. Cognitive outcomes typically targeted by early intervention include performance on standardised tests, school achievement, and higher education and employment opportunities once they leave school.
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Behavioural development involves children’s ability to monitor and regulate their own behaviour, attention and impulses. Children’s self-regulatory skills are highly associated with their ability to form positive relationships with others, as well as their success in school. Behavioural self-regulation difficulties during childhood are highly predictive of children’s involvement in criminal activity during the teenage years and adulthood. Behavioural outcomes frequently targeted by early intervention include reducing antisocial behaviour and crime, violence and aggression at school, and affiliation with antisocial peers.
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Social and emotional development involves children’s awareness of their own emotional needs and the emotional needs of others. Social and emotional development also encompasses the development of children’s self-esteem and their ability to manage negative feelings. Social and emotional development is strongly associated with a child’s ability to form positive relationships with others and a reduced risk of depression and other mental health outcomes. Early intervention outcomes associated with children’s social and emotional development include increasing pro-social behaviour, improving self-esteem and reducing the incidence of clinically diagnosed mental health problems.
Early intervention also targets three key additional ‘threats’ to a child’s development which are strongly associated with adverse outcomes during adolescence and adulthood: child maltreatment, substance misuse and risky sexual behaviour.
Universal or targeted?
Many families need more support than is available through universal services, such as schools and GPs. Early intervention works best when it targets particular families or individuals, on a selective or indicated basis.
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Targeted selective interventions are offered to families on the basis of broad demographic risks, such as low family income, single parenthood, adolescent parenthood or ethnic minority status. Although children growing up in these circumstances may not be suffering any specific problems, interventions that select families on the basis of these kinds of risks have the potential to keep more serious problems from occurring.
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Targeted indicated interventions are offered to families who have been identified as having a specific or diagnosed problem requiring more intensive support. In these cases, early intervention can no longer prevent problems from occurring, but has the potential to help in treating the problems and minimising or reversing long-term impacts on a child’s development.
With kind permission to promote the work of Early Intervention: © Foundations 2023. Foundations, the national What Works Centre for Children & Families is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales with company number 12136703 and charity number 1188350.
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Legislation supporting change...
'There has been rising need for children’s social care over the past decade, with the number of looked-after children increasing of over 20% since 2014. There are a number of reasons for this rise in need, including reduction in support for early intervention; an increase in the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; rising poverty and cost-of-living pressures; and an increase in referrals for extra-familial harms.'
Childrens Social Care; Education Committee House of Commons Inquiry 2025
The care system
The House of Commons Social Care Inquiry....
Department for Education data shows that, in 2024, 56,390 looked-after children (67%) were in foster care, 8,640 (10%) were in secure homes or children’s homes, and 2,220 (2%) were placed for adoption. There are no official statistics on children in kinship care, but the charity Kinship estimates that there are more than 141,000 children living in kinship care in England and Wales—three times the number in unrelated foster care.
'The Department for Education should review the educational support available to adopted children and make funding for the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund permanent to end the annual cliff-edge of uncertainty faced by families as they wait for funding to be renewed.'
Childrens Social Care; Education Committee House of Commons Inquiry 2025
Department for Education, Children looked after in England including adoptions, November 2024
FASD Informed Social Care
We tailor our bespoke 'FASD-Informed' training sessions around your services and the needs of the families you support; every session is unique because we consider your caseload, the blend of your community & the difference it will make to every case you consider in the future.
FASD continues to be a frequently misunderstood condition, those who are not appropriately trained or knowledgeable can often make inaccurate assumptions due to the fact that many individuals with FASD can superficially present as more able than they actually are, due to their spiky cognitive and neurodevelopmental profiles.
With up to 428 co-occurring neurodevelopmental conditions common to FASD, spanning across 18 of 22 chapters of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) -10. The most prevalent disease conditions include congenital malformations, deformities, and chromosomal abnormalities, mental and 'behavioural' disorders..... we consider the symptoms and look outside the box for a way forward.
Take a look at our course to become 'FASD Informed' Training for Multi-Disciplinary Teams
