Australia’s recent experience might be exceptionable in terms of its wide ramifications, but if anyone believed that the children’s services sector might not be much affected by the global financial crisis then the demise of the country’s ABC Learning Centre empire is a $700 million reason to worry.

Two new evaluations by the What Works Clearinghouse have put dents in the shiny exterior of Ready Set Leap! a “comprehensive, prekindergarten curriculum" that relies heavily on a range of educational toys and games. It has failed to find any measurable effects.

A classroom based behavior modification program for all first- and second-graders continues to show good results several years on. Latest US findings also suggest long-term cost benefits, particularly in relation to services for young men.

Re-analysis of video evidence collected during the clinical trials of Brief Strategic Family Therapy shows the importance of balancing the relationship between family members before tackling the risks of adolescent substance abuse which the program has been designed to address.

Australian research adds a small new twist to the US message that reading to preschool children is one of the most important things they can do to guarantee a successful education.

Almost exactly a year ago Prevention Action reported on the career of the Australian child health specialist Fiona Stanley and the debt she acknowledged to pioneering UK epidemiologist Professor Jerry Morris. Here’s more about Jerry Morris’s influential achievement and his part in surely one of the most elegant and far-reaching of twentieth century UK public health research studies.

A systematic review of all the reading progams on the market has concluded that co-operative learning - where students work together in small groups to help each other master their uncertainties – offers adolescents the best chance of escaping the long-term setbacks associated with reading difficulties.