Analysis of studies of the relationship between well-lit streets and criminality in the UK and US has found that civic pride and community spirit have as much to do with it as wattage.

UK child psychiatrist Tamsin Ford is among clinicians making the case for translating some of the measures used in epidemiological studies to the practitioner’s clinic to remedy glaring weaknesses in society’s response to children’s mental health problems.

Two reports on the progress of the US Prevention Research Center’s PROSPER substance abuse program find much predictable in what makes local community partnerships work – but suggest that “prevention co-ordinator” is emerging as an important new professional role.

Research from Georgetown University in the US suggests that cell phones have the potential to be an unusually versatile and penetrative research tool, particularly in work with vulnerable young mothers.

A Blueprints “Promising Program” designed to counteract alcohol use has failed to hit the mark with low-income inner-city youth in Chicago, so highlighting the importance of replication studies in prevention science – and the likelihood that control group characteristics change with the times.

Analogies between investments in children and investment in the money market start to look shaky in the light of recent events, but Nobel prizewinning economist James Heckman’s number crunching suggests that governments must put 35 percent more in an adolescent program than in a preschool program to earn the same “return”.

An evaluation of storytelling as a tool for examining the psychological well-being of very young children suggests that any signs of a “disorganized attachment” it uncovers are a justifiable cause for concern.

From their survey of Pennsylvania’s $60m long-term investment in evidence based interventions, Brian Bumbarger and Daniel Perkins found that nearly 40% of the programs had not implemented according to the design specification and in more than half of those cases adaptations had been made that could reasonably be expected to reduce effectiveness.

The introduction in Wales of the Incredible Years parenting program is continuing to provide researchers and service managers with insight into the kind of collaborative routines that should help to see evidence-based programs securely into mainstream practice.

When a well-made randomized controlled trial proves that a well-liked school tutoring program makes no difference either way to student progress, is there any way back for it? Yes, say US researchers Gary Ritter and Rebecca Maynard, as long as program designers sit up and take notice.

In the battle for reliable program design and evaluation, the US Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation says high-quality policy research is constantly competing against the fatal attraction to politicians of those whose claims for greater success are invariably based on weaker evidence.

As in medicine so in the fields of education and youth justice, randomized controlled trials may be difficult, expensive and, in some fields politically contentious, but the benefits to children and the taxpayer far outweigh the the costs.

Co-founder of the Oregon Social Learning Center Gerald Patterson revisits the deceptively simple argument that individuals and nations are violent only because they have learned that violence works. Prove that peacefulness pays and society might be on to something.

“How do we get Twiggle the Turtle into all the schools in Northern Ireland?” It may sound like the kind of question only a cynical toy manufacturer would ask; but it goes to the heart of the problem of implementing evidence-based programs.

For the past year or so, a good proportion of Prevention Action’s journal article coverage has been by Amelia Kohm, a specialist in child development and policy at the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. Amelia is returning to full-time research and from here on we must make do with more occasional pieces from Illinois. It’s a big enough change to warrant a few paragraphs of reflection on the fruits of her deep-reading.

A schools program which its designers believe will put the Northern Ireland community of Craigavon on the world map in terms of cutting-edge research has just been launched by teachers, parent representatives, researchers, community members, funders and policy makers with help from mentors from the US Prevention Research Center at Penn State University.

When it comes down to it, policy makers are likely to be less interested in the results of a systematic review than in what the reviewer thinks. Does it work? Should we do it? And research analysts are sometimes only too willing to answer.

“If someone tells you what to do, ask them, 'Where is the evidence?' If they don’t have any, your judgment is as good as anybody’s.” The director of the UK’s largest educational research group urges teachers to take the science into their own hands by trying out new strategies and evaluating them themselves, using ready-made monitoring information.

What to do with the knowledge that dangerous and expensive police raids on crack houses “work”, but that the benefit in terms of drugs crime will be felt for a mere 12 days – and the risks are therefore probably not worth the transitory benefit?