September, 2010

Weight expectations

The commonly held view that pregnant women should ‘eat for two’ is challenged in new guidance from Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Health.

Failure makes perfect?

Everyone is keen to learn lessons from successful programs, but ones that don’t produce the expected results can be instructive, too. One parenting program in a deprived English community shows how failures lead to success.

‘We all want to do the right thing’

Patrick Chaulk was part of the team that rid Baltimore of Tuberculosis (TB). Now he’s ready for a new challenge: helping to bring universal health care to his home city.

Angling for evidence

Evidence-based practice should be about more than professionals consuming pre-packaged guidance. Vashti Berry is impressed by Trisha Greenhalgh’s attempt to empower front-line practitioner.

How to make prevention better than cure

A new edition of a standard manual on diagnosis raises questions about how diagnosis can strengthen prevention science.

A look into the future of diagnosis

For the first time in its history, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders has published a draft edition of its coming fifth edition. This means that mental health professionals, researchers and those affected by mental illness have an opportunity to shape the final work.

A tome for our times

In the first of a series of articles, Prevention Action looks at the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, one of the world’s most influential psychiatric diagnostic tools, and how its latest edition is being developed.

When all is not as it seems

The effects of an after-school anti-drug program showed all the signs of being positive until the first randomized trial showed that things were not as previously believed.

Model behavior

Do effective models exist for communities wishing to help cut delinquency, teenage pregnancy, school drop-out and substance abuse? New research gives high marks to one of the best-known ones/ Communities that Care.

Emotional intelligence

New research suggests that substantial increases in mental health problems among young people in England are real – and hints at a vicious cycle affecting future generations.

Bringing prevention services home to the family

Services are poor and money for them is short. The response, says Tom Dishion, has to be affordable, effective assessments and interventions provided in schools and other places where there is regular contact with children and families.

Who cares! It's just more proof of "social cycle theory"

Is a sudden rise in UK care proceedings more evidence of the damage being done to the cause of prevention and child protection in the politically-manipulated aftermath of the Baby Peter case?

Preschool evidence has been right from the start?

There might be argument about its essential content and general effectiveness, but evidence continues to point to the potential of a good preschool system to level the educational playing field for disadvantaged children.

Making the world one big functional family

The need to adapt proven programs to local conditions worries developers and evaluators, but inside the Functional Family Therapy Inc. they take a rosier view, treating adjustment to local conditions as a valuable investment in future international relationships.

Do everyone a favor - stub it out completely

Two studies of different factors in the public health argument have come to the same conclusion – better to ban smoking in public places and be done with it

Incredible journey for one Skinner pigeon!

“Giving families a bit of Incredible Years is not the same as properly implementing it. It’s like baking a cake. You need all of the ingredients. People will have their own way of going about things but all the basic components have to combined in roughly the right order. There may be some adaptations – for diabetics, for example, but there are no short cuts.” Carolyn Webster-Stratton makes the case for fidelity in the kitchen of parenting programs.

The manifesto for a new "law of love"

A book summary of the results of the UK Good Childhood Inquiry makes the case for a new approach to child welfare and well-being retrieving – and promoting above creative individualism – ideas about public service and neighborly love.