Investing in early years is close to magic, without being magic. The United Nations has given greater prominence to the early years through a General Comment on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Health research is gravitating to a view that adult physical and mental conditions have their origins in the womb and the earliest months and years of life. More than any other skills, employers want people who can talk, listen, and work with others: attributes that are largely picked up before school. Economists have demonstrated that the best return on investment in ‘education’ is in supporting parents and children, in the years before school. While evidence, analysis, and experience, which we review, points in one direction, it leads to three questions. Where are we now in child well-being and supporting parents and their very young children? Why are we not doing better? What can be done?
