|
Introduction
|
|
| The Pathways to Prevention: Developmental and Early Intervention Approaches to Crime in Australia (1997) report produced by National Crime Prevention in Australia identifies four key concepts in developmental crime
prevention: |
|
• Early intervention aims to prevent “the development of criminal potential in individuals” (Farrington 1996, p18). |
|
• It does so by “aiming to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors” (Tremblay &
Craig 1995, p156-7) that research shows to be related to later offending. |
|
• Interventions are most effectively targeted at ‘transition points’. Pathways through life “fork out in different directions at the kinds of crucial transition points that mark new experiences and new relationships”. These are the times when people are most vulnerable to negative influences, but are also times when people are most likely to be open to support and assistance. |
|
• Interventions are most effective if targeted “early in the pathway to offending”, which may or may not mean early in life. |
| This is an exciting opportunity for people from a variety of fields to come together in Adelaide to discuss and debate these and other key issues in early intervention across the spectrum. |
| |
Conference Aims
|
|
| The conference aims are: |
|
• To promote understanding of early intervention in crime
prevention;
|
|
• To promote understanding of the nexus between early
intervention in crime prevention, in health and human services, and
in education;
|
|
• To broaden the base of support for early intervention; and
|
|
• To enhance the quality of research and evaluation in early
intervention
|
| |
The Conference will be of interest to delegates from health, human services, education,
justice and crime prevention including-
|
|
| Leadership, policy and training staff across State, Commonwealth and Local Government and from the non-government sector; practitioners, academics and researchers in areas such as early childhood, parenting support, mental health, community and neighbourhood houses, community development, child protection, education, youth work, crime prevention, community health, housing, welfare, policing, juvenile justice, courts and related areas. |
