Research has for decades consistently demonstrated that the foundations for learning are constructed in the earliest months and years of life when human brain development is most rapid and when synaptic patterns which organise and structure learning are set.  It is also in early life that children acquire the competence, resilience and coping skills that affect their life trajectories. These findings are supported by an increasing volume of empirical evidence which confirms that early childhood experiences and, in particular, a child’s relationship with its parent/care-giver has important influence on his/her future physical, intellectual, psychological, economic and social well-being.

Material disadvantage and economic hardship have been shown to significantly impact on child development outcomes but the research also shows that good parenting can militate against adverse childhood outcomes and improve children’s future life chances. Efforts to give every child the best start in life, therefore, need to begin in these early years, ideally at birth and ideally in the home - the primary environment for early learning and development and where future learning and development potential and capacities are set.

The economic case for early intervention to support child learning and development outcomes and to reduce the adverse effects on children of economic, social and parental disadvantage has also been clearly made.  Yet in spite of this evidence Ireland (0.2% GDP) and the UK (0.6% GDP) still spend less on early childhood education and care than many other European societies and both have relatively poor rankings on a range of dimensions of child well-being (UNICEF 2007) in comparison to other OECD countries. 

The Lifestart Foundation has for more than two decades been vigorously campaigning to raise government awareness of the importance and socio-economic value of early childhood intervention and for public support for parent learning and family support programmes in the context of addressing and implementing children’s rights. 

The policy context has at last begun to reflect such awareness. In Ireland key strategies include: