Croydon Council: Catalysing a Transformational Prevention Strategy

The Challenge
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In 2008, Croydon faced rising youth violence, spiralling social care costs, and growing concern about children arriving at school with major developmental gaps. Like most authorities at the time, its services focused on reacting to crisis rather than preventing harm. There was no unifying strategy to address risk factors in the earliest years of life.

Our Approach

Building on earlier strategic work with five London boroughs on violence prevention, Cameron Consultants, through WAVE Trust, was invited by CroydonCouncil CEO Jon Rouse to advise Croydon on preventive policies. We introduced him to international research on the expensive lifelong impact of early years abuse and neglect, the crucial importance of attunement and empathy in the first two years of life, and the economic case for upstream intervention to generate significant medium-term savings.

This engagement catalysed a fundamental shift in the Council’s strategic priorities. The CEO became an enthusiastic supporter of early years prevention. Recognising that not all senior directors were initially on board, he invited us to brief the entire top team and hold one-to-one discussions with key directors. These conversations helped align internal leadership around a new vision: to focus on preventing harm before it happens. Presentations to the Chair of Croydon Health Authority and CroydonPrimary Care Trust led to the support of Croydon NHS.

The Solution

With ongoing support and advice from WAVE, and based on the principles agreed,Croydon Council and NHS co-developed Child–Family–Place, Croydon’s ambitious cross-agency prevention strategy and its flagship Total Place pilot.Key innovations included:

• Family     Partnership Teams with devolved budgets across housing, health, education,     and social care
• Pre-parenthood     preparation pathways and early identification systems from pregnancy     onward
• Family     advocates offering sustained, non-stigmatising support
• A     proposed Early Years Academy to embed best practice and build a unified     workforce

A robust financial model projected net savings of £8.3million (NPV) within three years, £25 million by 2016/17, and £62 million by2023/24, even with a partial rollout. Cost savings were forecast to come from eight areas: looked after children, teenage pregnancy, child and adolescent mental health, educational behavioural disorders, NEETs, criminal offending, antisocial behaviour and pupil referral units.

The Outcome
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Croydon became the first UK local authority to embed early years prevention at the heart of its strategic planning. Central government funding for the pilot was awarded, which Jon Rouse explicitly linked to WAVE’s involvement:

“The reason we got the government support we did for ourTotal Place pilot was because of WAVE’s support… They had been integral to getting the project off the ground.”

The project was singled out in the government’s Allen Review of Early Intervention (2011) as a national exemplar — recognised for significant breakthrough thinking, its bold shift towards prevention and “much better value for taxpayers’ money”.

Jon Rouse later recorded a video [Click Here] expressing his thanks to WAVE for acting as both catalyst and strategic partner. Among his comments:

“The impact of the WAVE Trust over the last three to four years on our approach in Croydon has been pretty profound. We've gone from a situation of really having no coordinated preventative strategy to having a proper integrated early intervention and family support approach, which spans not just the local authority but other partners such as the PCT and hospital as well. … We owe them a debt of thanks.”