There is now a lot of research about youth delinquency and factors associated with it in Western Societies. But what about other parts of the world? Do findings from studies in the West hold elsewhere?

 
Triin Edovald, a post-doctoral Researcher at Dartington, looks at this issue in her new book 'Self-report Delinquency in a Post-Soviet Context' (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011).
 
Drawing on a survey of over 1500 Estonian youth, she describes the relationship between the nature and extent of delinquency and individual, family, peer and neighbourhood risk factors.
 
The study has important implications for understanding the extent to which findings from studies in the West apply in other contexts.
 
The book is available for purchase at Waterstones Bookshop. Follow this link for more information. 
 

Unit co-director Michael Little presents report on how to make greater use of evidence-based practice and programmes like the Family Nurse Partnership. Click here to watch the video of the presentation. 

In recent years there has been an explosion of evidence-based programmes that are scientifically proven to improve outcomes for children's health and development. But paradoxically, very few of these programmes have been taken up by the systems that are charged with delivering children's services, whether in the United Kingdom or the United States. Speaking at Demos on October 27, SRU Co-Director Michael Little argued that more work must be done to get the systems -- health, education, social care, police or youth justice -- that deliver services ready for evidence-based programmes, and to get evidence-based programmes ready for systems. This is now the key challenge if the promise of programmes proven on a small-scale is to be realised not only in terms of significant economic returns for governments and societies, but for the well-being of millions of children and their families.

Little spoke at the launch of his new publication Proof Positive which brings together ground-breaking research and ideas on how the challenge of implementing evidence-based programmes on a large-scale can be met. The event was hosted by DEMOS. To find out more about DEMOS, please visit their website at www.demos.co.uk. 
 
Click on the video above to watch a clip from the presentation. Or to download the publication, please click on the PDF link below. 

The new edition of the Journal of Children's Services looks at challenges that have arisen in relation to the services to promote child welfare that were at the heart of the England and Wales Children Act 1989.

The second instalment of a two-part special edition is guest-edited by Rupert Hughes and Wendy Rose. Both were in the Department of Health at the time and closely involved in taking the Act through Parliament and, for some years after, in efforts to get it implemented.

Contributors examine support, protection and care services, and consider the challenges facing practitioners, such as how to balance safeguarding and welfare and how to prioritise between universal and targeted services.

Articles focus respectively on the views of children, the education of children in care, the changing role of family centres, the professionalisation of early years provision, the effect of the legislation on disabled children, the status and strength and Local Safeguarding Children Boards, and the capacity of services to make a difference in the face of deep and worsening inequality.

The first part of the special edition, published in June 2010, considered the court system heralded by the Act.

A new book edited by Unit Director Michael Little and Barbara Maughan, from the Institute of Psychiatry, London, sets out the current state of knowledge on 'what works, for whom, when and why' when it comes to preventing and addressing child development problems.

Published by Ashgate as part of its Library of Essays in Child Welfare and Development, Effective Interventions for Children in Need brings together key journal articles by leading intervention scientists from around the world on subjects including the effectiveness of universal and targeted programmes, the relationship between need and services, and long-term outcomes of interventions.
 
Other books in the series look at child development, the law and child development, children's services in the developing world, children in state care, and defining and classifying children in need.
 
References
Little, M and Maughan, B., (2010) Effective Interventions for Children in Need, Aldershot, Ashgate
 
See publishers website for further details.

Key journal articles in the field of child development are brought together in a new book edited by Unit Director Michael Little and Barbara Maughan, from the Institute of Psychiatry, London.

Published by Ashgate as part of its Library of Essays in Child Welfare and Development, Child Development shows how understanding of the causes and consequences of impairments to children's health and development has been transformed in recent years.
 
A range of issues are covered, including the relative contribution of genetics and the environment, the way in which the brain re-wires itself at critical points in a child's development and the interplay between environmental influences and the individual characteristics of the child.
 
Other books in the series look at the law and child development, children's services in the developing world, defining and classifying children in need, children in state care and effective interventions for children in need.
 
Reference
Maughan, B. and Little, M (2010) Child Development, Aldershot, Ashgate
 
See the publishers website for further details or to purchase a copy of the book.