Why two Blueprints programs which suffered similar setbacks during a second phase of evaluation met different fates – one losing its place in the Model Programs list, the other holding steady.

Solid structure, intensity, continuous supervision and an independently calculated price tag of around $1,000 a year per relationship continue to set Big Brothers Big Sisters of America apart from the crowd of one-to-one mentoring programs.

Increasingly convincing evidence that any truly effective program will generally save public money in the long run is giving Washington policy makers the confidence to make well-calculated, long-term investments in prevention strategies.

Initiatives from the universities of Washington and Georgia, both focusing on efforts to intercept the dangers of alcohol abuse before they trigger other problems at home or at college, are getting good early results.

Paradoxes abound: about two-thirds of US schools run substance abuse programs, but fewer than a third use proven models. Even in the aftermath of an experience as searing as the Columbine High School massacre, the policy debate focused on police response and victim support, not on the prevention of violence.

None of it is new, of course. Youth and excess go together and “substance” problems of one kind and another thread their way through history. Wormwood, peyote, tobacco, gin, amphetamine… take your pick. But for Blueprints conference delegates the modern danger is inescapable: it’s time to worry about the damage drink, drugs and both together are doing to young people the world over.

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care doesn’t win any prizes for most elegant program name, but it continues to be a leader among the few proven remedies for deep-seated antisocial behavior among young people. Might its example inspire other designers of interventions for children caught up in otherwise moribund systems?

Does the Blueprints approach to establishing standards of program effectiveness and consistency offer the wider world of prevention science a blueprint for setting rigorous, universally relevant criteria?

Ahead of his Emanuel Miller Lecture, when he will review the the condition of attachment theory, we sketch the influential career of the pre-eminent figure in modern child and adolescent psychiatry, Sir Michael Rutter.

For the next three days we focus on one aspect of the work of the eminent child and adolescent psychiatrist Professor Sir Michael Rutter. The context is the annual Emanuel Miller Lecture, when he will review latest thinking on the value of attachment theory. Coverage of his talk at Regent's College, London, will be published on Friday; today we remember the polymathic achievements of Emanuel Miller; tomorrow we profile Michael Rutter’s own far-ranging career.

Perhaps by rather little, but Texas research has improved understanding of the "vital element" in their early relationships with their teachers that helps students set out confidently on the road to academic achievement.

The dangers of the drug Ritalin, the dubious late-career behavior of one the UK’s best known public health experts and the failings of former US president Richard Nixon come under scrutiny in a new book about cancer by environmental health expert Devra Lee Davis.

Painful as it may be to call a halt, can it be right for children and their parents to permit even the most well-meaning organization to carry on doing the same old thing if sound evaluation repeatedly shows it doesn’t bring them any benefit?

Can programs managed by community mothers achieve the same or better results as those managed by professionals, and, if so, in modern society is it right that only those with professional qualifications are entitled to power or status within personal service occupations?

Director of the Community Mothers Programme in Dublin Brenda Molloy describes how the relationship between family development nurses and their volunteer trainees is creating community solidarity based on an equal exchange of knowledge and experience.

Clinical and forensic psychologist Christine Puckering summarizes the research history of Newpin, a program designed to help parents escape from destructive cycles of family behavior by combining mother-to-mother support with efforts to deal with the scars of their emotional history.