The changing role of children’s charities delivering early intervention services

In chapter 6 we explore the impact of commissioning and policy changes on early intervention and preventative services for children delivered by the charitable sector. The definition of early intervention and preventative services is highly contested and politicised within policy and commissioning processes. This reflects an ongoing debate regarding the shifting paradigm of prevention. As the commissioning narrative has developed, there has been an overall disengagement between the voluntary sector providers and State. As the charitable sector is increasingly exposed to intensifying marketization, polarisation of relationships increases. We identify here three ‘types’ of organisational responses to this ever-changing environments; conformers – those charities who align themselves close to the State and regularly reinterpret their mission to fit State logic; the outliers – those charities which reject State approaches to early intervention and seek to deliver services completely independently of the State; and the intermediaries – those charities which walk between conformity and dissent, working with the State when necessary or too their advantage, and walking away when not. We discuss how these types fundamentally alter children’s charities perspectives and experiences of commissioning and the impact this has on their wider work.