Press Release

Guide provides evidence for promoting children's wellbeing and preventing anti-social behaviour

3 January 2006

A unique and comprehensive guide to the most effective programmes available in Britain for promoting children and young people's wellbeing while reducing the risks of underachievement and anti-social behaviour has been published by the national charity, Communities that Care.

The new Guide to Promising Approaches, fully revised and updated with support from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, describes a range of family, school and community-based services, including more than 30 programmes available in the UK whose effectiveness has been indicated by rigorous research.

Like the Communities that Care (CtC) preventive programme (being implemented in more than 30 neighbourhoods in England, Scotland and Wales), the guidebook argues that evidence-based programmes have a crucial part to play in local strategies that help young people fulfil their potential and reduce the likelihood of problems such as school failure, involvement in crime, drug misuse and school-age pregnancy. Evaluation has showed how each 'promising approach' is capable of reducing important underlying risk factors, while enhancing factors that protect children in adversity and strengthen their resilience.

The guidebook is designed to help community programmes use appropriate, tried and tested methods to tackle local priorities that they have identified through the Communities that Care process. But the information it provides should prove invaluable to a wider audience of service planners and practitioners, including those working in children's services, area renewal, public health and community safety.

Main headings in the new guidebook include:

• Prenatal services and early childhood.
  
• Early detection and treatment of postnatal depression.
  
• Early treatment of speech and language delays.
  
• Family support using home visitors.
  
• Parenting information and support.
  
• Pre-school education.
  
• Involving families in education.
  
• Reading schemes.
  
• Reasoning and social skills education.
  
• Organisational change in schools.
  
• Helping children with specific learning difficulties.
  
• Preventing truancy and exclusion.
  
• Out of school activities.
  
• Mentoring.
  
• Youth employment with education.
  
• Community policing.

In addition to details of well-evaluated services in Britain, the guidebook includes information on UK programmes that apply prevention principles whose effectiveness has been demonstrated in the United States, Canada, Ireland and elsewhere. Practice notes are also provided on topics such as youth work, truancy prevention and housing management where the available research does not meet the criteria for 'promising approaches'.

Barry Anderson, Chief Executive of Communities that Care, said: "The Communities that Care programme begins with a vision of how neighbourhoods can be transformed over time into safer, more cohesive communities, where children and young people are valued and encouraged to achieve their full potential. We know from existing CtC neighbourhoods that the promising approaches described in the new guide can play a valuable part in helping local people, agencies and everyone concerned in promoting children's wellbeing to turn their vision into reality.

"The guidebook will be especially helpful to service planners in the public and voluntary sectors who have a powerful interest in ensuring that services to improve the lives of children and communities are based on sound evidence concerning their effectiveness."