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China's response to the recent Syria crisis at the UN Security Council represents a crucial case in China's approach to intervention in that it breaks from China's recent practice of becoming more permissive regarding intervention. Instead, China actively worked to ensure that a firm line was drawn to separate intervention from foreign-imposed regime change. It did so by employing three diplomatic innovations: exercising multiple, successive vetoes; expanding discourse to delegitimize intervention as “regime change” by Western powers; and engaging in norm-shaping of the international community's “responsibility to protect” post-intervention. Together, these three innovations highlight China's desire to firmly separate the intervention norm from that of regime change. Using a variety of primary sources, the article also draws insights from interviews with foreign policy elites in Beijing, New York and New Delhi.

To date, Ireland has been a leading light in the provision of youth mental health services. However, cognisant of the efforts of governmental and non-governmental agencies working in youth mental health, there is much to be done. Barriers into care as well as discontinuity of care across the spectrum of services remain key challenges. This editorial provides guidance for the next stage of development in youth mental care and support that will require significant national engagement and resource investment.

The purpose of this Editorial is to summarise the key recommendations of the Lancet Commission on Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care, reporting on the best available evidence to date on what we can do to prevent and intervene for dementia. We briefly describe the new life-course model of dementia prevention incorporating nine modifiable risk factors and their potential effect in reducing individuals’ risk of dementia. We also summarise the recommendations of the report about which pharmacological, psychological, and social interventions are effective, and improve outcomes for people with dementia and their families. Recent developments highlight that there is good potential for the prevention of dementia. Progress in evidence-based approaches indicate the potential for dementia care to be of high-quality and widely accessible. Acting upon this knowledge now will reduce the global burden of dementia and improve the lives of people living with dementia and their families.

A pilot study of the effectiveness of guided access to websites that provide information on intervention options for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was conducted with 12 parents of preschool-aged children with ASD. Guided access to reliable websites that included information about the efficacy of interventions for ASD (Raising Children Network, 2006–2014; Research Autism, 2006–2014) was provided in the format of a DVD presentation. The guidelines for choosing interventions provided on the Raising Children Network (2009) website were reiterated and assistance was provided with navigation and interpretation of the sites. Participants reported the guided access to reliable websites as useful and also reported an increased level of confidence in making intervention decisions after using the package. However, the guided access did not appear to influence the factors that parents considered important in decision-making, their understanding of the level of research support for interventions, nor their desire to use different interventions. Implications for future research and attempts to disseminate information to parents are discussed.

Large numbers of refugee children are arriving in high-income countries. The evidence to date suggests that they have mental health needs that are higher than for the general population and that these are exacerbated by the numbers of traumatic events they have experienced and the post-migration stressors they continue to be exposed to. The importance of a thorough and thoughtful assessment is discussed. Treatments of note are described for post-traumatic stress disorder, family functioning, general mental health problems and school environments. Future opportunities to operationalise outcome measures, develop multimodal interventions and utilise implementation science methodology are considered.

This study evaluated Evolve Therapeutic Services, an innovative Queensland, Australian programme employing a trauma-informed collaborative wrap-round model of care in combination with a flexible intervention approach that is individually tailored to children and young people in out-of-home care who present with complex and extreme behavioural and mental health problems. The sample consisted of 768 children and young people. Three measures, the Children's Global Assessment Scale, Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Children and Adolescents and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire were used to assess functioning via a pre-post treatment design. Outcomes were assessed by comparing pre and post-treatment mean scores using repeated-measures t-tests. For estimates of differences in the proportion of children and young people in the clinical range between pre and post-treatment the McNemar test was used. In addition, surveys were completed by carers and stakeholders. Results provided a demographic profile, clinical profile and pre and post-treatment comparisons. Results revealed significant improvements across a range of problem areas: general functioning and adjustment; antisocial behaviour; overactivity and poor attention; non-accidental self-injury; problems with scholastic and language skills; emotional symptoms; peer and family relationships; self-care and independence; and school attendance. Survey data supported the outcomes from the stakeholder-rated and carer-rated measures. Findings provide ongoing evidence for the effectiveness of the therapeutic intervention programme.

IR scholars have always invoked history as a valuable resource for understanding the present. However, the question of how should we go about investigating and interpreting the past is rarely asked, let alone answered. While most IR approaches are anchored to the attempt to situate oneself outside history – reading the past in terms of the present or in terms of a hypothetical future – this article strives to redress the kind of historical perspective adopted, if at all, by IR scholars. It does so by advancing a distinctive historicist approach that emphasises the importance of understanding past practices and discourses in their own historical and intellectual contexts. In order to substantiate this claim, the article goes on to critically engage with recent calls to historicise intervention in IR, arguing that a historicist mode of analysis represents a corrective to presentism as well as an alternative route into present-day debates.

Over the past 50 years, research on children and adults with learning disabilities has seen significant advances. Neuropsychological research historically focused on the administration of tests sensitive to brain dysfunction to identify putative neural mechanisms underlying learning disabilities that would serve as the basis for treatment. Led by research on classifying and identifying learning disabilities, four pivotal changes in research paradigms have produced a contemporary scientific, interdisciplinary, and international understanding of these disabilities. These changes are (1) the emergence of cognitive science, (2) the development of quantitative and molecular genetics, (3) the advent of noninvasive structural and functional neuroimaging, and (4) experimental trials of interventions focused on improving academic skills and addressing comorbid conditions. Implications for practice indicate a need to move neuropsychological assessment away from a primary focus on systematic, comprehensive assessment of cognitive skills toward more targeted performance-based assessments of academic achievement, comorbid conditions, and intervention response that lead directly to evidence-based treatment plans. Future research will continue to cross disciplinary boundaries to address questions regarding the interaction of neurobiological and contextual variables, the importance of individual differences in treatment response, and an expanded research base on (a) the most severe cases, (b) older people with LDs, and (c) domains of math problem solving, reading comprehension, and written expression. (JINS, 2017, 23, 930–940)

In this article I argue that the claims made about the efficacy of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) echo the pejorative conceptions of “utopianism” as advanced by E. H. Carr and Ken Booth in two ways: through the determination of RtoP supporters to claim “progress” in spite of countervailing empirical evidence; and through the exaggerated importance that supporters ascribe to institutionalization, which mistakenly conflates state support with a change in state behavior and interests. I argue that RtoP's impact on the behavior of states has been and will continue to be limited. Moreover, while RtoP has garnered widespread support among states, this is due to it having been rendered largely impotent through a process of norm cooptation. While both Carr and Booth criticized a particular form of utopianism, they both also defended the articulation of normative prescriptions that are not immediately feasible. To this end, I conclude by suggesting a potential reform of the existing international legal order that meets Carr's preference for normative thinking that is “utopian in the right sense.”