The success of Mexico’s PROGRESA program, which rewards poor parents who keep their children in education, has been emulated in other developing countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Pakistan and Kenya. But less successful trials in the UK and the US suggest the importance of context.

Evaluations of Home-Start have encountered a problem that can flaw family support work generally: the most in need are all too often the hardest to reach and the hardest to reach the least likely to accept help.

So many people in the US have said they’d like to be a mentor that, in theory, every child in the country could have one. But the evidence emerging from randomized controlled trials warns that haphazard school based programs often do more harm than good.

Socio-linguistics has found a way to bring systematic understanding to research findings that are consistent across most but not all cultures and those that differ markedly between cultures. Might a similar approach be useful to prevention science as it begins to reckon with the many similarities and few variations in the factors influencing children’s mental health in different parts of the world?

Just about everyone agrees that a balanced diet is a good idea, but a study behind bars may provide the first solid evidence that eating the right things boosts young people’s mental health.

Developmental studies in the Netherlands suggest that concentrating on the educational failings of children showing a propensity toward antisocial behavior may give them a better chance of escaping later trouble than enlisting them in specifically-designed conduct interventions.

Publication of a report on the long-term socioeconomic damage done by child abuse and neglect – said to be the first study of its kind in the US – makes a contribution to heated debate at home and abroad about the priorities of state-provided health care.

Vanderbilt University’s Len Bickman was in charge of the largest mental health services demonstration project for children ever conducted. When the results didn’t turn out as expected, Bickman decided to question some underlying assumptions. His surprising conclusions changed the course of mental health service for children in the United States.

Behavior problems increase the risk of foster placement breakdown; foster placement breakdown aggravates behavior problems – a support program trial in San Diego looks like it might offer an escape from a damaging, costly downward spiral.

“If we know how to enhance social-emotional growth in our schools, then we must use what we’ve learned to benefit our children … “ The latest publication from the UK Institute for Effective Education delivers its verdict on the condition of what prevention science is calling the fourth classroom “R” – for regulation.

Frightening children about the consequences of crime; peer counseling programs; segregating problem students from the mainstream; after-school activities that provide limited supervision; summer jobs for at-risk youth… what do these prevention strategies have in common? They’re all being used somewhere in the world – and none of them works.

How important studies of the early development of twins have shed new light on the relationship between hyperactivity and academic achievement.