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This article reports on three pragmatic randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to help children at risk of conduct disorder (CD): two involved the Incredible Years (IY) BASIC parent programme and the other concerned the IY teacher programme. All three interventions took place in regular service settings in North‐ and Mid‐Wales. In all three studies, staff from the provider agency delivered the programme and participated in RCT evaluations in which participants were randomly allocated to intervention or waitinglist control conditions. After a brief introduction to research into the prevention or treatment of CD, and the issues to be considered by services in selecting and delivering interventions, this article summarises the structure, content and evidence base of the IY programmes. The three Welsh studies are briefly described before exploring what factors contributed to service participation in the trials and the benefits and lessons learned in undertaking them.

The evidence‐based Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (TCM) Programme was developed to meet demands from teachers for strategies to manage disruptive behaviours in the classroom (Webster‐Stratton, 1999). This article describes the programme and reports on its first use in the UK. In the first study 23 teachers attended the five‐day classroom management programme, 20 completed the final satisfaction questionnaire and 21 participated in a semi‐structured follow‐up interview. Teachers who implemented the training in their classrooms reported satisfaction with the programme and believed that the strategies taught were effective and improved pupils' conduct. In the second study, blind observation of teacher classroom behaviour was undertaken in 21 classes: 10 teachers had received the TCM training and 11 had not. Teachers who received TCM training gave clearer instructions to children and allowed more time for compliance before repeating instructions. The children in their classes were more compliant than children in the classes of untrained teachers. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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.

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 paper describes the author's work during 35 years as a clinical psychologist in the NHS in Wales working mainly with conduct disordered children and their families. It describe how from initially working within an applied behaviour analysis (ABA) framework with individual families she subsequently established and researched the group based Incredible Years (IY) parent programme in Wales and led a Wales‐wide dissemination of the IY programmes.

The paper provides a case study example of the use of the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) criteria for translational research, that is research that can be applied successfully in the real world.

Many of the challenges were overcome through the inclusion of strategies to maximise effectiveness with differing populations, and by gaining the support of government and local services.

The paper discusses the challenges of taking an evidence‐based programme to scale.

This paper aims to describe coal-face challenges to making services in the UK work to ensure the mental and physical health, safety and wellbeing of children.

After briefly referring to some challenges to effective joined-up service provision, it describes examples from the first author's experience of problems, during 30+ years as an NHS clinical child psychologist, and some solutions. It then describes two challenges that underpin many of these problems: lack of understanding of, or training in, evaluating evidence for interventions and a more general lack of knowledge about effective behaviour change principles.

The paper concludes with recommendations about how to achieve effective joined-up services. Common themes emerging from the research are discussed, including choosing evidence-based programmes, providing adequate training to staff, and increasing people's understanding of behavioural principles.

Having effective joined-up services would mean better services for parents and their children, and would be more cost-effective for the NHS. The ideas presented in this paper could also be applied to other services within the NHS.

To compare the characteristics of parents and children recruited for two randomised-controlled trials (RCTs) of parenting support in disadvantaged communities in Wales in order to explore the effects of community-based vs individual-based targeting in early prevention.

Parents from high-risk disadvantaged communities in Wales, where additional early intervention services were targeted as part of a Welsh Government early intervention strategy, were recruited to two RCTs of parenting interventions. In the first study parents of targeted three- and four-year-old children, who were screened, and deemed at risk of long-term problems, were recruited from Sure Start (SS) areas in Wales. In the second study parents of one- and two-year-old children living in disadvantaged Flying Start (FS) areas were recruited, with residence within the FS area being the only recruitment criterion.

FS areas are more strategically targeted as communities with a greater percentage of families with high levels of socio-economic disadvantage and associated risk than SS areas. Families in the toddler parenting trial based in FS areas, recruited without any additional screening, were experiencing higher levels of socio-economic deprivation, mental health problems and parenting stress as well as other known risks to child outcomes than the general population. However, when compared with the individually targeted population recruited for the SS study, they were shown to be experiencing significantly lower levels of these and other risks factors for poor child outcomes than the sample recruited for the SS trial where recruitment was based on known child risk factors. The paper discusses these findings and explores the implications of targeting by geographical area (community level targeting) alone vs targeting individual families by known risk factors. The findings suggest that screening measures would identify children at greatest risk of poor outcomes and whose families might benefit from additional targeted services. Suggestions for possible screening measures are also made.

This paper contributes to discussion about effective ways of allocating limited resources to best effect.

Socio-economic disadvantage is linked to poor parenting skills and subsequently poorer child development. The most deprived geographical areas in Wales have been targeted under the Welsh Government Flying Start scheme to receive additional resources. Unfortunately, many in-need families either lived outside these areas or required further intervention above what was provided. The Welsh Government decision to extend Flying Start is appropriate but the proposed targeting method may still fail to reach all high-risk families. The purpose of this paper is to explore an alternative targeting method.

The current study examined the association between five socio-economic and demographic risk factors and parenting outcomes in a sample of Flying Start families.

Quality of housing (overcrowding and housing standards) played a significant role in predicting poorer parenting outcomes in terms of language and home stimulation. Exposure to multiple risk predicted poorer outcomes regardless of which risk factors were present.

This paper contributes to discussion about effective ways of allocating limited resources to best effect.

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.

There is growing interest in the economic evaluation of public health prevention initiatives and increasing government awareness of the societal costs of conduct disorder in early childhood. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cost-effectiveness of the Incredible Years (IY) BASIC parenting programme compared with a six-month waiting list control.

Cost-effectiveness analysis alongside a pragmatic randomised controlled trial of a group-parenting programme. The primary outcome measure was the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), a measure of child behaviour.

The IY programme was found to have a high probability of being cost-effective, shifting an additional 23 per cent of children from above the clinical concern to below the cut-off on the SDQ compared to the control group, at a cost ranging from £1612-£2418 per child, depending on the number of children in the group.

The positive findings of this study have led to ongoing implementation of the IY programme and is therefore an example of commitment to evidence-based service provision and investment in prevention initiatives.