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The need for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to support evidence‐based services to improve outcomes for children is increasingly recognised by researchers and policy‐makers. However, this brings a pressing requirement to build research capacity for conducting RCTs and to address the concerns of practitioners who may be suspicious about the method. This article reviews a variety of texts on the subject, ranging from analyses of the historical and political context of RCTs, to concise introductions of the key methodological and practical issues, to more in‐depth discussions of complex designs and statistics. The article seeks to help readers navigate these resources by focusing on seven questions that seem particularly salient for those considering whether and how to commission, undertake, participate in or use results from RCTs.

Summarizes the work conducted on the research and development of machinery to automate the turning and pressing of collars and their automated assembly to the shirt‐collar bands sponsored by the Defense Logistics Agency. This research and development has involved the conceptualization, design and development of proof‐of‐concept shirt‐collar turning and pressing processes based on “double‐point turning and pressing” and their systems integration into a robot‐assisted apparel workstation. The work has also involved a second activity to understand, design and develop technology which can temporarily fold and crease single‐ply shirt‐collar bands for continuous automated assembly of shirt collars and collar‐bands. This work has involved the understanding of the folding and creasing properties of various apparel fabrics, the evaluation of two technology approaches for accomplishing this task, and the attachment machine control technology for high‐speed collar and collar‐band joining.

To examine the general political structure and background to decision making in aviation policy.

Largely conceptual and theoretical, applied to political and historical examples.

That ‘politics as usual’ signifies a structure characterised by adherence to underlying presuppositions which guide political and economic action and that moves towards different ways of thinking and acting and that environmental policy faces an uphill battle in the light of these often unacknowledged and typically unquestioned presuppositions.

Political action requires an accurate understanding of the circumstances in which it is to be undertaken. This chapter provides a clue to that proper understanding and hence is valuable for the appropriate orientation of political action.

The chapter employs an everyday term, ‘politics as usual’, and analyses its structure, claiming that it identifies a real underlying set of default positions in politics.

Although numerous national and organisational level approaches have taken to improve their mental health, Japanese workers still suffer from high rates of mental health problems. Despite its worldwide application, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) has not been evaluated for these problems in-depth. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of NLP training for mental health among Japanese workers.

A pre-post test design with repeated measurements was used with 30 Japanese workers, who were undertaking NLP Practitioner Certification training. The effects on mental health were assessed with the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 and the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale at pre-training, post-training and a three-month follow-up.

The mean scores of depression and stress decreased significantly, and mental well-being increased significantly between pre-training and post-training and between pre-training and follow-up. There was no significant difference between post-training and the follow-up for any of the measures.

The results suggest this training was effective for mental health of Japanese workers, and the positive effects on mental well-being were sustained.

This is the first ever study to empirically evaluate the effects of the regulated NLP training on the mental health of Japanese workers, conducted by researchers well-versed in NLP. This training might be conducive to improving the mental health of the Japanese workforce. Larger scale and/or controlled studies are needed.

The pressure on higher education providers (HEPs) and national programme partnerships to evaluate the impact of widening participation (WP) interventions has intensified as a result of wider changes in higher education (HE) policy and regulation, including the imposition of market forces. This chapter describes how policy stakeholder assumptions about how evaluation works and the outcomes it delivers have evolved over the last two decades. It shows how regulatory emphasis has shifted from a focus on monitoring and tracking, through to a call for return-on-investment analysis, before falling back on a pragmatic theory-informed approach. This chapter goes on to locate WP evaluation in the middle of a paradigm war, caught between proponents of a medicalised trial-based conception of evaluation methodology, and a practitioner-led position, which points to the complex contextual character of WP activities. It continues by exploring some of the many practical challenges faced by WP evaluators and argues that these have contributed to the sector’s perceived failure to deliver robust evidence of the impact of fair access activity. This chapter concludes with a look at the expanding market for WP evaluation products and services, which emerged in response to new flows of WP investment created by the 2012 increase in tuition fees.

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are acknowledged to provide the most reliable estimate of programme effectiveness, yet relatively few are undertaken in children's services. Consequently, there are few models with a demonstrated impact on child well‐being, leading to a concern not only that services may frequently be ineffective but also that some may be harmful. This article considers how this state of affairs has come into being and discusses potential remedies for improving both the knowledge base and the quality of interventions. It focuses on ‘operating systems’ that link prevention science and community engagement and so help communities, agencies and local authorities to choose effective prevention, early intervention and treatment models. Specifically, it describes an attempt in Ireland to implement a robust programme of research into children's health and development, to rigorously design new services, evaluate their impact to the highest standard (using RCTs)and integrate the results into the policy process. Based on the authors' extensive first‐hand experience of supporting the work, and the advice of international experts, the article reflects critically on the unforeseen challenges and offers lessons for others starting a similar enterprise.

This article reviews the contents of the previous year's editions of the Journal of Children's Services (Volume 2, 2007), as requested by the Journal's editorial board. It draws out some of the main messages for how high‐quality scientific research can help build good childhoods in western developed countries, focusing on: the need for epidemiology to understand how to match services to needs; how research can build evidence of the impact of prevention and intervention services on child well‐being; what the evidence says about how to implement proven programmes successfully; the economic case for proven programmes; the urgency of improving children's material living standards; how to help the most vulnerable children in society; and, lastly, the task of measuring child well‐being.

Intergenerational confinement is an under-recognized, policy-driven issue which greatly impacts Indigenous and racialized peoples in countries with ongoing colonial legacies. Numerous policy solutions enacted over colonial history have exacerbated instead of mitigated this situation. This chapter advances an improved understanding of the impacts of carceral legacies, moving beyond the dominant focus of parental incarceration in the literature. Focusing on Indigenous peoples, multiple generations in families and communities have been subjected to changing methods of confinement and removal. Using critical policy analysis and interview research, this chapter interrogates these intergenerational impacts of carceral policy-making in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 124 people in the three case countries, this chapter centers perspectives of people who have been intergenerationally confined in carceral institutions. With a goal of transformation, it then explores an alternative orientation to policy-making that seeks to acknowledge, account for, and address the harmful direct and indirect ripple-effects of carceral strategies over generations.