Is ten years in the US Defense department good training for a career persuading government to divert more funds into rigorous evaluation and to support the widespread implementation of programs that will enhance young people’s prospects. Jon Baron’s experience suggests so.

His most abiding legacy will be the 3,000 plus Sure Start children’s centers that serve disadvantaged children across the UK each day. Naomi Eisenstadt, Director of the UK Social Exclusion Unit, and Prevention Action’s executive editor Michael Little, pay tribute to Norman Glass, the former director of the National Centre for Social Research, who died last month.

“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.

Chair of the Centre for Social Policy at Dartington UK, Roger Bullock, remembers the career of the distinguished scholar and social policy activist, Professor Peter Townsend who died after a heart attack last weekend.

After 40 years at the University of Pennsylvania, Professor of Sociology Frank Furstenberg is beginning to get the measure of the long journey into “full social adulthood”.

In the eighth decade of a career of huge significance in the evolution of the science of child development and its role in US social policy making, the holder of the “Children’s Nobel Prize” is preparing to publish his saddest book. “We have no childcare system here” says Edward Zigler. “It's just a hodgepodge – poor to mediocre at best…”

“Longitudinal data is compelling stuff. It gives you leverage over policy makers to do the right thing…" The founder of the think-tank charity Longview, John Bynner, explains why the UK should continue to be a world leader in long-haul research.

Almost exactly a year ago Prevention Action reported on the career of the Australian child health specialist Fiona Stanley and the debt she acknowledged to pioneering UK epidemiologist Professor Jerry Morris. Here’s more about Jerry Morris’s influential achievement and his part in surely one of the most elegant and far-reaching of twentieth century UK public health research studies.

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.

“We don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it - or rather we get educated out of it…” Education consultant Sir Ken Robinson’s dissection of academics and of the stifling school system he believes they have inflicted on the world has gone to the top of the podcast charts.

Strong partnerships, careful decisions rooted in good science – and several timely injections of serendipity – have combined to build on the shell of a dejected young US probation officer one of the widest-ranging and energetic contributions to the emerging science of prevention.

"Like any good investment adviser, half of my job is to be a good scientist and half is to help people make sense of the results…” Steve Aos explains the similarities between intelligent service design, a well-balanced investment portfolio and a cleverly-conceived spread-betting system.