I recently participated on a study tour to Washington State with a group of policy makers, practitioners and investors in children from England, Ireland and the US. Each day I tried to summarize two or three lessons that might be helpful to me and to colleagues as we go about the task of improving outcomes for children.

The late comedian's efforts to help others avoid the same cancer that eventually killed him, speak volumes about the worth of prevention and early intervention.

On the last two days the group visited Carolyn Webster-Stratton and her team to hear about the Incredible Years programme, and also the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington to hear from David Hawkins, Kevin Haggerty and their team about the Communities that Care (CTC) prevention operating system and a series of evidence-based programmes that they have developed and tested.

Inside an ordinary building in a business park in Washington State, four parents are taking part in a program for substance abusing parents, designed and proved effective by the Social Development Research Group.

The week nears the end and I’m going Twitter crazy.

Today we visited the Washington State Institute for Public Policy and heard from Steve Aos, Robert Barnoski and Stephanie Lee about their work for the state legislature on the cost-benefit of different programs.

The group’s discussion afterwards focused on the meaning of ‘evidence-based’, the implications of evidence that a program doesn’t work, and how best to get politicians engaged with the evidence.

So following earlier speculation about getting to the essence of the ‘offer’ of evidenced based programs I gave my tweeting skills a try on FFT.

My colleagues from Dartington have had a running joke this week with our colleague Ali Abunimah who uses the internet tool, Twitter. (He has had more fun at our expense than we have at his).

Discussions on the third day of the study tour centered around the fit between programs and systems, fidelity of implementation and adaptation to cultural context.

We arrive safely in Seattle: a laptop, keys, a handbag and $200 dollars already lost and found.