The On Track Early Intervention and Prevention Programme : from theory to action

On Track is an early intervention and prevention programme that was initiated under the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme (www.crimereduction.gov.uk/crsdoc1.htm). £30 million was provided over three years (2000 – 2003) for the setting up and development of new children and family services in local authorities in the UK. The programme selected 24 deprived and high crime areas to develop community based pilot projects. These were to be located within small geographical areas and had to target children who were ‘at risk’ of becoming future offenders. This report is one of a series that has been published by the Home Office on the On Track Programme. Two reports focus on early implementation issues and identify some of the early learning for setting up and managing large programmes such as On Track (Harrington et al., 2004, Hine and Harrington, 2004). A third examines how service providers in a sample of On Track areas define and consult ‘hard to reach’ families and deliver services to them (Harradine, 2004). This report focuses on service delivery up to 31 March 2002, describing what has been delivered, to whom, at what cost and to what effect. Data on individual outcomes is very limited at this stage.