Institutionalising science‐based practices in children's services

Over the past 30 years, researchers have documented effective, theory‐based programmes and practices that improve the health and well‐being of children. In order to produce measurable improvements in public health, such practices must be institutionalised; however, there are a number of barriers to translating what we know from science to what we do in practice. In the present article, we discuss a number of those barriers, including: cultural differences between those who espouse a public health, prevention science approach versus those who espouse a strengths‐building, health promotion approach; practical difficulties in documenting the evidence base for existing or newly developed programmes and practices; and inflexibility of standardised programmes and resulting insensitivity to local contexts. We discuss common ground between prevention and promotion perspectives and highlight emerging methods that facilitate the adoption of science‐based practice into community‐based services.