Abstract:

This study poses two principal questions of the stronger communities element of the commonwealth government's stronger families and communities strategy: what is the evidence that prevention and early intervention programs promote the development of stronger communities and create measurable positive social outcomes; and what is the evidence that there is a cost-benefit to be achieved by government supporting such programs? The report concludes that prevention and early intervention do contribute to the promotion of strong communites and to positive social outcomes - they do so in a way that enables communities to continue to deal with issues through their own resilience and capacities; and prevention and early intervention programs contribute to community building and positive social outcomes in a cost-effective way, in many instances these cost-benefits are demonstrably cumulative.