A significant part of SRCD is devoted to the application of science to policy and practice. Listening to some of the early contributions on the subject, one is struck by a couple of paradoxes.
First we know so little about child development but we cannot get what we know into policy and practice.
Robert Boruch from the University of Pennsylvania is leading the Campbell Collaboration, [1] a kind of clearing house for data on 'what works'. It has 15,000 entries so far. But hardly any of it is being applied.
Second, SRCD is a model of sharing knowledge. But listening to those that have struggled to get evidence used in policy, it is clear that one of the major problems is getting academics to agree on what we know and what we don't know.
There are many proven prevention models on show at this conference, but no agreement on what combination of models would improve outcomes for children. In fact, one suspects that outside of the warm spirited confines of the biennial meeting, there is a lot of unhelpful competition as innovators claim thay 'my model is better than yours'.
The conclusion seems to be that we know too little and too much, but we cannot agree on what we know and don't know. The response of the scientist is to try and get policy makers and practitioners to behave differently; to listen to the evidence, to implement proven models and to rigorously evaluate innovation.
But as much might be achieved by getting the scientists to behave differently. To listen to the needs of policy makers, to agree on a core set of findings and models that can improve children's development and to work with policy makers and practitioners on getting these findings embedded in real life contexts
Links:
[1] http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/