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The purpose of this paper is to explore whether there are ways in which the preventive strategies used to tackle volatile substance abuse (VSA) can be usefully applied to today’s new psychoactive substances (NPS).

In 2010-2013, with funding from the Big Lottery, Re-Solv, in partnership with St George’s, University of London, and educari, commissioned a re-analysis of both the mortality data relating to VSA and of the legislative and preventative measures taken that may have played a part in the steady downward trend in VSA mortality since. This paper is informed by Re-Solv’s research findings and the papers resulting from it, namely, Ives (2013) and Butland et al. (2013).

Efforts to reduce the harm from NPS could benefit from a re-examination of preventive approaches to VSA, which have resulted in a downward trend in mortality over the past two decades.

There is evidence from past prevention practice which could be relevant and applied to present day concerns about drugs and substances not previously available or used.

This is the first paper to explore how learning from VSA might be applied to NPS and the “legal highs” of today.

This paper will review the estimated prevalence of ‘dual diagnosis’ among young offenders, briefly review the gaps in service and look at what research tells us about what works best with young people. The group this paper focuses on in the main are those 18 years of age and under and who have come into contact with the criminal justice system and have dual diagnosis. At times, however, the authors draw from a wider literature because working with young dual‐diagnosed offenders is a relatively new field.

This paper describes how a group of prisoners at HMP Grendon Therapeutic Community undertook to survey staff and prisoners about unmet needs relating to abstinence from substance misuse. Participatory action research (PAR) principles helped to focus the energy and enthusiasm of the group, who sought to test their hypothesis that therapy could not meet the needs of everyone in relation to relapse prevention. With help, the group developed and analysed a survey, wrote or contributed to interim and final reports, evaluated the Relapse Prevention Taster Course that was commissioned as a result and contributed to this paper. The group processes are described, and two of the members describe what they got from participating.

This paper aims to report findings from an evaluation of the Strengthening Families Programme 10‐14 (UK) (SFP 10‐14 UK), focusing on the strategies used to recruit families into a universal prevention intervention, the approach taken to group composition, and the experiences of participating families.

Methods comprised interviews with programme coordinating team members, a focus group with programme facilitators, focus groups with parents and young people, observation of programme sessions and coordinator visits to families, and analysis of programme questionnaires.

Paying attention to group composition and the needs of families with challenges holds promise in terms of reach and acceptability, delivery fidelity, enabling intended psycho‐social programme processes and promoting positive changes in parenting and family communication.

First, the paper examines the development of strategies for recruiting participants, which has been identified as a key implementation challenge. Second, it explores approaches for managing group composition and dynamics in family‐based programmes. While much has been written about the development of group norms and peer learning processes in interventions for young people, less has been written about how group dynamics work in programmes involving both parents and young people and the implications for implementation fidelity.

Evidence on implementing effective adolescent mental health promotion and prevention interventions in the European context is underdeveloped. The purpose of this paper is to identify evidence-based mental health promotion and prevention interventions for adolescents that have been developed and/or implemented across the school, community and digital settings in Europe. This review also sought to identify the relevant implementation processes in relation to what works, for whom and under what circumstances.

A narrative synthesis of the evidence was conducted which included two stages: a systematic search of studies assessing adolescent mental health promotion and prevention interventions; and a selection of interventions with the most robust evidence base, using pre-defined criteria, that have been either developed and/or implemented in Europe.

A total of 16 interventions met the inclusion criteria. The majority of interventions were school-based programmes. The review findings support the delivery of interventions aimed at enhancing young people’s social and emotional learning (SEL) and preventing behavioural problems. Results indicate that the effective delivery of SEL interventions on a school-wide basis could provide an important platform on which other universal interventions such as anxiety and bullying prevention, and targeted depression prevention could be developed in a multi-tiered fashion. There were a limited number of studies providing robust evidence on the effectiveness of suicide prevention, digital and community-based interventions.

This review identifies a number of robust evidence-based promotion and prevention interventions for promoting adolescent mental health. While the interventions have been implemented in Europe, the majority has not been evaluated rigorously and few included detailed information on the quality of programme implementation. Evidence of the effective cross-cultural transferability of these interventions needs to be strengthened, including more systematic research on their implementation across diverse country contexts.

The purpose of this study is to examine characteristics of resilience among Australian adolescents, the extent to which resilience might be strengthened through participation in a dance/drama competition, the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge (REC), and the impact participation may have on health related behaviour.

Students completed questionnaires at the commencement of the REC planning and rehearsals in schools. The survey was repeated immediately after completion of the competition. Three groups of students were compared comprised students engaged in the REC (participants), students from Rock Eisteddfod schools who did not participate in the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge (REC school non‐participants) and students from schools that did not participate in the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge (control school students). The questionnaire was designed to measure changes to key modifiable elements of resiliency and selected health behaviours.

The majority of participants in the REC were girls, and the analysis of results was restricted to a matched group of girls from Year 9 (age 13‐14) and above. Girls in this group from REC schools scored significantly higher in measures of overall resiliency during the rehearsal period than students from control schools. Within REC schools, participants scored higher for a combined measure of resiliency than non‐participants. High scores for resiliency were consistently associated with lower prevalence of reported substance misuse across the whole sample. In general, increases in substance use observed over the time period from baseline to follow up was less in the REC group than the control group.

Several methodological problems were encountered in this study, including identification of adequate measures of personal skills and characteristics, difficulty in obtaining a true pre‐intervention point to commence the study; and in identifying a large balanced sample of students that would allow for meaningful analysis of results; as well as the normal difficulties of identifying and maintaining contact with a large cohort of students in many different sites. For these reasons, the results need to be treated cautiously, and “causal” conclusions about the intervention could only be preliminary.

The study indicates the potential benefits of participation in programmes like the REC, and the results are consistent with other studies indicating positive associations between participation in the REC and a range of positive personal, social and behavioural outcomes.

The paper highlights some of the methodological challenges in conducting a prospective assessment of the effects of participation in a health oriented dance/drama event. It indicates the potential of this type of activity as a vehicle for the communication of health messages, and the possibility of a more direct influence on personal skills and health related behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a psychological outcome tool which reflects the relationship between clusters of items on the Short Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) risk assessment and different categories of psychological progress in male inpatient psychiatric services.

A principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted on data from 135 male psychiatric rehabilitation patients’ START risk assessments.

PCA identified four strength psychology quadrants which were explained by a five-factor structure and four vulnerability quadrants which were explained by a four-factor structure. The development of the psychology quadrant, its usefulness in establishing a treatment pathway and areas of future research are also discussed.

Developing accessible, transparent outcome measures using evidence-based practice is highly relevant within the field of mental health rehabilitation.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical perspective on the international evidence on promoting young people’s social and emotional well-being in schools. The challenges of integrating evidence-based interventions within schools are discussed and the need for innovative approaches to research and practice are considered in order to support more sustainable approaches that can be embedded into the everyday practice of school systems.

A common elements approach to intervention development and implementation is explored. A case study is presented on piloting this approach with post-primary students, based on consultations with students and teachers concerning their needs in supporting youth social and emotional well-being.

The integration and sustainability of evidence-based social and emotional skills programmes within the context of whole school systems is far from clearly established. Research on the use of a common elements approach to evidence-based treatment and youth prevention programmes is presented and the application of this method to the development and implementation of social and emotional learning interventions is considered. Preliminary case study findings are presented exploring this approach in school-based intervention development for post-primary school students.

The potential of adopting a common elements approach is considered; however, more rigorous research is needed to identify the most potent strategies for social and emotional skills development.

Identifying a common set of evidence-based strategies for enhancing adolescents’ social and emotional skills could lead to innovative approaches to intervention delivery that would extend the impact and reach of evidence-based practice across diverse educational systems and school settings.