Introducing, Researching, and Disseminating the Incredible Years Programmes in Wales

Which programme to choose? How to deliver it so as to achieve comparable outcomes to those reported in the research trials? These two issues, choice of programme and how to take interventions to scale and deliver them effectively in service settings, are the subject of the growing field of "implementation science" that has been informed by the Society for Prevention Research and set out in their guidance to service providers on how to ensure that evidence based programmes work in service settings (Flay et al. 2004) and by the work at the University of Colorado Center for Violence Prevention in identifying strongly evidence- based ?blueprint? programmes (Mihalic et al. 2002).

This paper provides a case study in the implementation and dissemination of the strongly evidence-based Incredible Years parent, child and teacher programmes across Wales. It describes the author?s work in delivering, researching and supporting the dissemination of the parent programme, and subsequently the child and teacher programmes, with the support of the Welsh government. It sets out the reasons for choosing the programmes, the steps taken to test their effectiveness in service settings across Wales, the dissemination process and lessons learned.

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