The health sector and early childhood intervention: intersectoral collaboration in research

Abstract

Early childhood interventions are locally and regionally organized support services for families from pregnancy until the end of the third year of life. The interventions promote diverse measures to enhance parental skills in order to improve developmental and living circumstances. One crucial element of early childhood intervention in Germany are prevention networks at municipal level. The collaboration of healthcare professionals and child and youth welfare professionals in these networks aims to provide nonstigmatizing access to early childhood intervention for families with psychosocial burdens. From the point of view of the healthcare sector, the research program Together for Families (ZuFa Monitoring) of the National Centre on Early Prevention (NZFH) at the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) has collected representative data at the interfaces of gynecology, obstetrics, pediatrics, and early childhood intervention since 2017. The background and goals, as well as design and methods of the ZuFa Monitoring studies are described. For obstetrics clinics and resident pediatricians, sample descriptions, including data on representativeness and early data regarding collaboration quality, are given. The samples are representative for the population of obstetric clinics and resident pediatricians in Germany. At least two-thirds of the respondents indicate that the proportion of families with psychosocial burdens has increased. Care for psychosocially burdened families is regarded as challenging due to alack of time, limited financial compensation, and aggravating conditions, such as language barriers. Respondents expect early childhood intervention to alleviate their daily work. ZuFa Monitoring collects data regarding the care for families with psychosocial burdens at the interface of the health and the child and youth welfare sector. The research program generates information on inhibitory as well as promoting factors, thereby informing the further development and expansion of prevention networks at the municipal level, and heightening the quality of care for families in the health sector.