At the present time there is a need for a new generation of programs to address the needs of ‘at risk’ children and families. This is an issue that is exercising the minds of service planners in both government and non-government community service organisations. This need arises from the fact that many existing programs have yet to be rigorously evaluated and are of questionable effectiveness. This lack of evidence of effectiveness does not sit well in the current climate of accountability. It also runs contrary to the increasingly strident calls for evidence based practice.

Many new programs arrive in Australia from the US as this country is often the source of program innovation as illustrated by the importation in the 1980s and 1990s of family preservation and family reunification programs. In the US, promotion of ‘model programs' has taken another step and a systematic effort at program replication is now in evidence. The question is, how might model programs from overseas be successfully replicated in Australia? And what is required, if anything, to replicate these models effectively taking account of our different cultural traditions?

The busy clinical practitioner, while being encouraged to innovate and formally evaluate his or her work, has less time than ever before to do either.

The Mums' and Dads' Project represented a modest attempt to implement a short-term parent education project in adult mental health and review it in the style of practice-research. A number of qualitative methods were employed to research the Project conducted in the Mid West Area Mental Health Service exploring consumer satisfaction and parents' perspectives of their children's needs.

Consumers attended the sessions readily, demonstrating knowledge of child development and a willingness to confront the difficult issue of informing children about mental illness. They reiterated how much they appreciated meeting other parents with a mental illness.

Service delivery to parents with a mental illness and their children deserves dedicated funding if their needs are to be addressed and programs carefully evaluated.

Fifty-two (52) cases of infant abusive head trauma (IAHT), investigated by the Queensland Police Service over a ten-year period, were examined for information on victim and offender demographics. The study revealed a mean age of 2.6 months for victims of assaults categorised as involving a shaking-type mechanism, indicating that the youngest infants are particularly susceptible to that form of injury. It was further demonstrated that abusive injuries are most likely to be caused by a primary caregiver, such as a biological or step-parent. It is thus hypothesised that to assist in prevention, some form of written caution on the dangers of infant shaking should be provided to all parents immediately prior to their child's departure from the maternity ward.

An issue of some concern that has emerged in the field of youth welfare in recent years is that of treatment services for young people who are sexually abusive and unable to reside with their families, or other family settings. This issue has been of such concern to staff at St Luke's Anglicare in Central Victoria that a project of review, both of the need for therapeutic intervention and of contemporary practices, was undertaken in the last twelve months. This short paper summarises the specific findings of staff who worked on this practice oriented project and makes recommendations for future practice with the client group.

When looking back through history, it is often the care of the needy and disadvantaged that is taken as the measure of our society's past decency and worth. How our ancestors dealt with the distribution of wealth, what attention they gave to issues of justice and equality, and how much concern they showed for those suffering poverty or distress are questions used to judge the value of social developments. People who work with children often keep ideas and images of children's past welfare in mind as a guide for their work today. In the process of considering the care of children historically, and particularly that of orphaned or unwanted children, one is often struck either by the lack of change in the ways by which people care for children; or by the undue praise awarded to ‘progressive’ or ‘scientific’ understandings of children's needs. The view taken does, of course, depend largely upon which era is chosen for comparison with the present.