Mr. Gerry Hone:

We have lots of social workers, social care staff and family support staff supported by able administrative workers, providing a full range of early intervention services across all our pathways. Early intervention is crucial for providing support at the earliest stage to stop problems from developing into something that becomes critical and more acute for families. Through our commissioning programme in all the areas, we look at needs in local communities. For example, if there is a need for early intervention relating to parenting, teen pregnancy and support for teens who get pregnant, we fund those programmes directly through our commissioning processes. Several programmes around the country do that.

The other aspect of our reform programme related to early intervention will be standing up 90 family support teams across the country as part of that. We will be taking a family support pathway with clear referral processes and clear assessment of need, benchmarking our interventions against the need that we identify and creating outcomes to achieve for people who are vulnerable. We have a single care plan that we hold ourselves and other agencies accountable to delivering to meet those needs. I agree entirely with what the Deputy is saying.