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On November 19th 2009, Michael contributed to an ESRC-sponsored seminar in Nottingham on ‘Inter-disciplinary Perspectives of Emotional Well-Being and Social Justice’. It was the last of a series organised by Kathryn Ecclestone, Professor of Education and Social Inclusion at the University of Birmingham. Michael’s talk is attached. Please follow the link below.
On 3rd of March Michael gave a presentation to policy makers and practitioners from Devon. Using Research to Inform Children's Centre Practice Conference was organised by Devon County Council. Speakers included Jacqueline Barnes who covered the implementation of Nurse Family Partnership in the UK.
On the 19th of November, Michael gave a presentation at the Children Act’s Advisory Board’s ‘Assessed – so what’ Evidence to Practice Seminar, that took place in Dublin. The following link provides notes form Michael’s presentation on assessment in the multi-disciplinary world.
The following PDF contains notes from Michael’s presentation at the ‘Third Annual Conference for Randomised Controlled Trials in the Social Sciences: Methods and Synthesis’. The conference took place in York between September the 29th and October the 1st 2008. Michael’s presentation was concerned with use of experimental methods in Ireland and Birmingham.
Michael presented at the Inaugural Family Relationships Services Australia (FRSA) conference in Cairns, Australia this year. Below is his keynote presentation.
Dartington have been doing pro bono work for the King Edward IV Community College in Totnes. Tim Hobbs applied a shortened version of Dartington's Common Language Epidemiology tool, focusing just on the SDQ component. The data in the attached PDF file was shared with senior staff at KEVICC on the 6th of March. Information on SDQ (along with child, parent and teachers version of the questionnaire to download) can be found at www.sdqinfo.com Information on latest thinking about prevention science and its application to policy and practice can be found at www.preventionaction.org. The Reference page on the site, which lists effective programmes and sources of information about effective programmes may be particularly helpful. This resource will be removed from the site on Monday 10th of March.
At a conference organised by the Manchester Children's Fund at Gorton Monastery on the 27th of February, Michael gave a presentation summarised in the following slides.
At a workshop at the Accountability for Outcomes: National Children's Services Commissioning Conference and Exhibition on 11th February Michael described the logic model underpinning philanthropic investments for children on the island of Ireland. He also made reference to epidemiology used to underpin planning processes. An example of epidemiology for older children in Birmingham is available for downloading for the next few days. (A similar format is used for younger children).
CSIP Conference Suffolk December 2007 The following notes and presentations are taken from Michael Little's contribution to the CSIP conference at Ickworth in Suffolk in December 2007. His contributions also rested heavily on resources accessed via the new publication, Prevention Action, www.preventionaction.org The slides from the Birmingham and Together 4 All epidemiology studies are selected to illustrate aspects of this kind of work and are not intended to convey all of the results of the work undertaken in these two sites. The document called Ireland LM is a longer exposition of the ideas that underpinned the investments in the island of Ireland, an area roughly analogous to the East of England. The final document is a podcast prepared by Michael's colleague Tim Hobbs that explains how SDQ produces data that can be used to improve well-being of children in schools.
Lancashire Children's Fund: Changing Minds, Changing Cultures These notes refer to some of the points Michael Little made during his presentation at the Cumbria, Lancashire and Cheshire Children’s Fund Meeting. Much of the data and discussion about the well-being of children in UK and the impact of prevention innovation since 1997 are contained on the Prevention Action website, a daily publication covering breakthroughs in prevention science and application to policy and practice. Prevention Action also contains valuable resources such as databases of good practice, and links to other reliable sources around the world.
Rialto Learning Project Choose a link below to download the presentation. Mac users Control-click the link and choose 'download linked file'
11th Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect (ACCAN) keynote address Michael’s notes from his keynote address, along with a podcast of the accompanying presentation, for the 11th Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect (ACCAN) are available below. The argument is made for a radical shift in child protection policy, moving away from often harmful care systems and shifting the focus of child protection to all children (a public-health or population-wide approach). It is argued that a number of ‘false divides’ must be broken down if such a shift is to take place. These false divides include i) the tension between child protection vs. family support; ii) prevention vs. treatment; iii) top-down vs. bottom-up; and iv) community engagement vs. prevention science. For truly radical changes to take place a better connection between such false divides and a shift towards public health approaches to child protection are advocated.
Further resources relevant to this talk include: For daily online news about child development and children’s services: For information about Common Language methods: To see people talking about these methods:
Presentation to Far North Queensland child protection/welfare staff Michael talked broadly around three themes: i) the public-health approach; ii) reunification of children to families; and iii) cultural competency. What follows are links to a number of useful resources from the first two topics. The first resource referenced to in Michael’s talk was a new online publication called Prevention Action. Running all of this week is a special issue focused on work being undertaken in Australia. It is updated daily with reliable evidence for scientists, policy makers and practitioners working with children, the publication is available free at: http://www.preventionaction.org Second, in relation to the the public-health approach, the following question was asked: ‘where has the public health approach been shown to be effective?’. The reader is directed to a number of database of proven practices below. These all contain a number of targeted prevention, early intervention and treatment approaches. The first is our own database of proven models from around the world; this is continually growing, with two or three new programmes added each week. Click on the ‘effective services database’ link. http://www.commonlanguage.org.uk/ There are also a number of other similar resources available from the US. See links below: http://www.promisingpractices.net/programs.asp http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/ http://www.modelprograms.samhsa.gov/ Finally, in relation to reunification (and to reducing the numbers of children in care), reference was made to a number of practice tools developed by Dartington. An overview of these can be viewed at the common language website (link provided above). Of particular interest will be ‘Going Home’, ‘Threshold’ and ‘PaperWork’. If you have any enquires please do not hesitate to contact Michael via Tim Hobbs (thobbs@dartington.org.uk), or Michael’s assistant, David Jodrell at djodrell@dartington.org.uk.
Michael is Executive Director of Prevention Action, an online publication bringing daily updates on child development research and its application to policy and practice. Michael contributes occasional comment pieces to Prevention Action. The following deals with getting more people actively engaged with greater innovation and evaluation. Michael Little on innovation and evaluation
Michael writes: 'I have long been interested in the Bauhaus School as a metaphor for applying ideas from several disciplines to common training programmes that are used to sponsor innovation manifest as products that are useful in everyday life. The Bauhaus was interested in such connections in the context of the arts and architecture. My interest is in the links between research, policy and practice and in "making things" that will improve outcomes for children and families. The following PDF contains a presentation given at Chapin Hall. It deals with three issues; one the connections within the Bauhaus, two connections between the Bauhaus and what I call ‘oilers’ who fund unusual connections –including the Elmhirsts of Dartington, and three connections between Bauhaus and the work of the Warren House Group.'
Time for a Change: A Review of Fostering Now and other Programmes of Research on Children in Need. Adoption & Fostering, 29, (4), 9 - 22 The following pdf file contains and article prepared for Adoption and Fostering. The central theme is a review of an overview of research prepared by Ian Sinclair on behalf of UK Government on foster children. The review is one a series that started with Jane Rowe's Social Work Decisions in Child Care in 1987 (Michael prepared two of the overviews in 1995 -on child protection- and 1998 on residential care). The major point of the overview is to say that the type of research that underpins these types of overviews, though hugely influential on UK Government policy, is probably adding little new value to children's services: a new approach is advocated.
The following pdf file contains a representation of the logic model devised on behalf of Atlantic Philanthropies and used to underpin a $200m investment strategy aimed at improving health, learning and commitment to community for Ireland's children. The presentation was used at the APPAM conference held in Madison Wisconsin in November 2006. The presentation was part of a panel considering ways in which United States public policy can learn from and contribute to international initiatives. Michael co-edits The Journal of Children's Services with Nick Axford. It was launched in 2006. The following editorial from the November 2006 edition deals with the place of proven models - or programmes - that have been shown by experimental methods to have an impact on children's health and development. It is intended to provoke a longer discussion about the place of proven models, the need for continued evaluation and the desirability of a manualised approach. Link to JCS via publisher website
The following pdf file contains a presentation given to an invited seminar at the Commonwealth Club in London in October 2006. The purpose of the meeting was to explore new ways of supporting children in care, or looked after as they are referred to in English legislation. The meeting was chaired by Roy Parker. A DVD with Roy's concluding remarks and relevant papers is available from Dwan Kaoukji at Dartington Social Research Unit. The meeting is expected to lead to a consortium of local authorities designing, implementing and rigorously evaluating new services for children whose development is significantly impaired.
In May, July and September of 2006 Michael gave three presentations to a conference at Dublin City University (Health 4 Life), the Office of the Minister for Children in Dublin and the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Belfast on some of the underpinnings of Dartington Social Research Unit's support for Atlantic Philanthropies investments in the island of Ireland. The following Powerpoint file, which is best viewed alongside the Ireland LM pdf above, captures the main points made in these presentations.
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How to decide what to do about children’s well-being
FRSA presentation (PowerPoint 20Mb)
SDQ Presentation Video
