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The purpose of this paper is to provide a selective, UK‐focused review of recent literature on effective interventions for preventing and reducing conduct problems in 3‐8 year olds; and to update the chapter in the Sutton et al. (2004) research report Support from the Start on effective interventions for children aged 3‐8.

The authors provide a narrative review of the risk factors for conduct disorder.

The review describes risk factors for conduct disorder in this age range and presents an approach to selecting effective programmes. It describes some of the better quality evidence‐based interventions in this age range that have been disseminated and successfully implemented in the UK.

The review provides an update of the accumulating evidence for interventions aimed at preventing and reducing conduct problems in the 3‐8 year old age group. It introduces innovative models designed for service delivery and examines lessons learned from implementation of these programmes. The paper provides recommendations that paper can be used by service providers to help make informed decisions and offer effective programmes to families.

This article reports on the first health technology appraisal conducted jointly between the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). The appraisal systematically reviewed evidence for the clinical effectiveness of parent‐training/education programmes in the management of children with conduct disorders. This appraisal is highly topical in the light of cross‐cutting policy agendas concerned with increasing parenting capacity. It is also methodologically innovative in its approach to synthesising the meta‐analysis of trial evidence on outcomes of programmes with qualitative evidence on process and implementation. The appraisal found parent‐training/education programmes to be effective in the management of children with conduct disorders, and it identifies the generic characteristics of effective programmes. It is concluded that this approach offers an exemplar for the development of systematic reviewing of complex psychosocial interventions that are relevant to integrated children's services.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the potential of technology transfer in prevention interventions. It argues that contextual factors are more identifiable and more malleable than the cliché of “culture” as a barrier to implementation might suggest. The key question is how various contextual factors impact on programme implementation and effectiveness in the different cultures of a multifaceted continent such as Europe, and how successful programmes adapt to various contexts.

Using a questionnaire survey, input was collected from people involved in the adaptation and implementation of the Strengthening Families Programme (SFP) in several European countries.

The publications and experiences of the SFP implementers and evaluators in most of the European countries where it was introduced suggest that the programme is both feasible and effective (where outcomes are available). To achieve this, however, the implementers spent a considerable amount of time and effort to prepare, pre-test and consult with their target populations in order to adjust SFP to culture and context. This paper suggests restricting the use of “culture” to a set of norms and values, and to distinguish this from “context” which describes social and political organisation. Even though both condition each other, it is helpful to address culture and context separately when adapting prevention programmes.

Outcome data were not available for all implementations of SFP and some very recent ones in Austria, France and Italy could not be included in the questionnaire survey.

An examination of social capital might help implementers to anticipate resistance from the target population that seems to emanate from history, culture and context. The level of trust of others and institutions and the willingness to co-operate with them can heavily influence the readiness of drug prevention service planners, commissioners and providers, as well as the target population, to adopt interventions and other behaviours. Programmes seem to have key principles that make them effective and that should not be modified in an adaptation: a particular example is the programme protocol. Other aspects, such as wording, pictures and the content of examples used to illustrate some issues do have to be modified and are essential for an intervention to be well-accepted and understood. In some programmes, the effective principles – so-called “kernels” – are identifiable although, overall, prevention research still strives to identify them.

Implementing complex programmes that require the cooperation of many stakeholders might increase social capital in the communities involved.

The paper examines the common belief among many European prevention professionals that programmes from abroad, particularly from North America, cannot be implemented in Europe.

This paper aims to review selected effective interventions (available in the United Kingdom) for middle childhood (9‐13 years) to reduce the risk of, or current/subsequent involvement in, anti‐social behaviour and criminality.

Electronic databases and reviews of evidence‐based effective programmes were searched to identify family, school, child and community programmes that are available in the United Kingdom.

Despite current public policy emphasis on “early intervention”, there are increasing numbers of effective interventions for this older age range available within the UK. Age‐appropriate risk‐reduction interventions reflect family, school, community, and peer influences.

This paper, read in conjunction with other age‐specific contributions in this volume, demonstrates the growing viability of evidence‐based strategies that support children and their families to reduce known risk factors for behavioural problems, and respond to antisocial and criminal behaviour.

Demonstrating the efficacy and effectiveness of prevention programmes in rigorous randomised trials is only the beginning of a process that may lead to better public health outcomes. Although a growing number of programmes have been shown to be effective at reducing drug use and delinquency among young people under carefully controlled conditions, we are now faced with a new set of obstacles. First, these evidence‐based programmes are still under‐utilised compared to prevention strategies with no empirical support. Second, when effective programmes are used the evidence suggests they are not being implemented with quality and fidelity. Third, effective programmes are often initiated with short‐term grant funding, creating a challenge for sustainability beyond seed funding. We discuss each of these challenges, and present lessons learned from a large‐scale dissemination effort involving over 140 evidence‐based programme replications in one state in the US.

It is common nowadays to hear people speak of Management by Objectives. But it is not so common to hear the relevant but often ignored question, ‘By whose objectives?’ If the question were asked someone designing an effective ‘management’ learning programme, the answer should be loud and clear as ‘by the learner's objectives.’ This is so because the objectives of the learner are in full control of what is learned, how fast it is learned, how well it is learned, and for how long it stays learned. That is, the learner makes the choice of what is learned and/or unlearned, he learns what impresses him most (whether he is expected to learn such things or not) and leaves out the experiences that do not impress him at all (whether they are ‘important’ or not). This assertion of conscious will on the behaviour of the adult human being makes it imperative that for any learning programme to be effective, the learning material to be presented to the adult, must be made to be as near as possible to what he would have freely chosen (to satisfy his learning needs — why want to learn) in terms of content (what to learn with), methodology(ies) (how to learn), time (when to learn), duration (for how long to learn formally, location (where to learn), and facilitators (people to help him learn). Hence the need for a designer to put all these items together optimally for effective learning.

Explains that effective development programmes are those from which people emerge re‐energized and capable of transforming this energy into action which enhances the performance of their organization. Proposes six themes which govern the design and delivery of such programmes and suggests the main implications for their teaching and facilitation. Describes how evaluation, using the simple and well‐understood principles of the conversion of potential to kinetic energy from the physical sciences, enables managers to make useful comparisons across the full spectrum of the programmes for which they are responsible.

BUSINESS SCHOOL GRAFFITI is a highly personal and revealing account of the first ten years (1965–1975) at Britain’s University Business Schools. The progress achieved is documented in a whimsical fashion that makes it highly readable. Gordon Wills has been on the inside throughout the decade and has played a leading role in two of the major Schools. Rather than presuming to present anything as pompous as a complete history of what has happened, he recalls his reactions to problems, issues and events as they confronted him and his colleagues. Lord Franks lit a fuse which set a score of Universities and even more Polytechnics alight. There was to be a bold attempt to produce the management talent that the pundits of the mid‐sixties so clearly felt was needed. Buildings, books, teachers who could teach it all, and students to listen and learn were all required for the boom to happen. The decade saw great progress, but also a rapid decline in the relevancy ethic. It saw a rapid withering of interest by many businessmen more accustomed to and certainly desirous of quick results. University Vice Chancellors, theologians and engineers all had to learn to live with the new and often wealthier if less scholarly faculty members who arrived on campus. The Research Councils had to decide how much cake to allow the Business Schools to eat. Most importantly, the author describes the process of search he went through as an individual in evolving a definition of his own subject and how it can best be forwarded in a University environment. It was a process that carried him from Technical College student in Slough to a position as one of the authorities on his subject today.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of a shadowing/mentoring component of a post-graduate programme designed to prepare deputy and assistant principals for the principalship.

The research design is a qualitative evaluation of the shadowing/mentoring component of a principal preparation programme. The experiences of 13 individual aspiring principals who had taken part in the programme were explored using semi-structured interviews.

The shadowing/mentoring component of this programme allowed the aspiring principals to gain an understanding of the complexity of a principal’s role by shadowing and being mentored by experienced principals in a range of New Zealand schools. In addition to providing them with a network of effective principals, the experience led the aspiring principals to reflect on their leadership development.

The study drew on a small sample of 27 students enroled in the programme, 13 of whom were included in the data collection process.

This study presents the views of aspiring principals who valued the opportunity to relate theory to practice as part of a post-graduate programme.

Both the government and local service providers in the UK are becoming increasingly aware of the possibility of improving child outcomes through the delivery of parenting programmes. Government initiatives, such as Sure Start, Pathfinders and Flying Start are a positive step forward, yet programmes sometimes fail to work in service settings. This article describes the components necessary to deliver effective interventions, exploring the need to choose an evidence‐based parent programme, implement it with fidelity and evaluate the outcome. It describes the steps taken in North and Mid Wales to do this and reports briefly on the successful outcomes achieved by delivering the Incredible Years Basic Parenting Programme to the parents of high‐risk children in Sure Start areas.