The Pathways to Prevention Project: The first 5 years 1999-2004

Abstract

Pathways to Prevention is a universal, ‘early intervention’, developmental prevention project. It is based on the assumption that mobilising social resources to support children, families and their communities before problems emerge is more effective and cheaper than intervening when problems have become entrenched.The key is to work early in the developmental pathway, which does not necessarily mean early in life. For the period covered in this report the project focused on the transition to school in one of the most disadvantaged urban areas in Queensland. It combined child-focused programs delivered through state preschools (the Preschool Intervention Program, or PIP) with services for families (the Family Independence Program, or FIP), within a community development framework.The project is an ongoing partnership between Mission Australia and the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffith University. The project had its beginnings in the Federal Government report, Pathways to Prevention: Developmental and Early Intervention Approaches to Crime in Australia (1999), written by a group of scholars from several disciplines that came together as the Developmental Crime Prevention Consortium under the leadership of Professor Ross Homel from Griffith University. While planning began in 1999, the project was first fully implemented in 2002. Its overarching goal is to create opportunities for positive development for children and their families, and to promote their full participation as citizens in society – thus reducing the chances that they will become involved in crime and related problems. Development and implementation have involved the creation of a university-community agency partnership that, apart from a Queensland Government grant equating to about ten percent of total funding, is supported entirely from corporate, philanthropic and research agency sources. The project has emphasised child- and family-focused programs equally; it has an emphasis on quantitative as well as qualitative evaluation; and much attention has been paid to the development of a methodology for cost comparison and cost-effectiveness analyses based on short-term outcomes. This report has been written in response to the frequent requests that we receive to provide an overview in one document of the Pathways to Prevention Project: its history, methods, results, and conclusions. The report covers the first five years, from the initial concept to the conclusion of the “first phase” at the end of 2004. In this period we implemented and evaluated a range of programs, and were able to measure a number of aspects of child well-being and family functioning. Although Pathways is now larger and more complex than it has ever been, the end of 2004 is a good point to draw a line, since it marked the end of our initial period of funding through the Federal Government’s Australian Research Council, the Westpac Foundation and the John Barnes Foundation. By then, we also had a lot to say about what we had done and what we had achieved!