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Themes

• Working With Offenders
  • Cognitive-Behavioural Approaches
  • Community Based Court Disposals
  • Crime Prevention
  • Diversion
  • Early Intervention
  • Education/Schools
  • Employment / Work / Training
  • Family Therapy / Support
  • Housing / Accommodation
  • Leisure / Sport / Art
  • Mentoring
  • Partnerships
  • Prison
  • Restorative Justice
  • Secure Care
  • Throughcare/After Care
  • What Works?
• Types of Offending / Delinquency
• Types of Offender
• Children & Young People
• The Criminal Justice System

Early Intervention

While it is widely accepted that early intervention in terms of any type of difficulty is the best way forward, the research to support the effectiveness of this approach in terms of outcomes for the person is limited.  As part of the ‘21^st Century Social Work Review’ in Scotland a document was produced, however, that lays out the social worker’s role in prevention and early intervention that provides useful information and also some suggestions for further reading.  Other potentially useful documents include:

• Young People ‘At Risk’ of What?  Challenging Risk-focused Early Intervention as Crime Prevention (Case, 2006)

• The Paradigm of ‘Risk and Protection-focused Prevention’ and its Impact on Services for Children and Families (France and Utting, 2005)

• Early Multiple Intervention: A View from ‘On Track’ (Hine, 2005)

• Child Delinquency: Early Intervention and Prevention (Loeber et al, 2003)

• The Effectiveness of Early Childhood Home Visitation in Preventing Violence: A Systematic Review (Bilukha et al, 2005)

Some websites also provide useful information on early intervention.  For example, the U.S. National Institutes of Health website has a recent article on an Intensive Early Childhood Programme that could be of interest, while the U.K. Community Care website also currently has a brief article on the benefits of early intervention.  The Research, Development and Statistics section of the Home Office website also has a section devoted to preventing offending by children and young people, which provides links to a number of articles available online.