“It’s the difference between understanding evidence based practices and evidence based programs. Both are important, but we don't yet know how the two fit together.” Professor Del Elliott looks forward to a synthesis of Blueprints-style “benchmarking” of initiatives and the improving meta-analysis of prevention strategies.

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.

"If Australia were to be examined on the way it respects children's rights, it would fail the test. And that’s why it will not take the exam". Prevention Action talks to "National Living Treasure" Fiona Stanley about her continuing campaign to improve the well-being of all her country's children.

The idea that where you end up depends, at least in part, on where you start from has gained currency among those who study crime, poverty, and public health issues.

"When you see somebody with it, you know they have it," says American television star and opinion-shaper Oprah Winfrey. The ‘it’ factor she says, is "an undefinable quality," a light that "cannot be dimmed, no matter how much hardship or poverty you have known." Yet that intangible quality is exactly what Oprah believes she was able to identify among the successful applicants she interviewed for a place at a $40 million girls boarding school she has funded and is championing in South Africa.