The evaluation process often begins when the organisation maintaining the psychosocial intervention, the organisation using the intervention (e.g. wellbeing services county) or other operator notices that the effectiveness of the intervention has not been assessed or that it would need to be reassessed.

The need for an intervention evaluation may also arise from a current phenomenon affecting children and young people.

The organisation that maintains or uses the intervention or other operator may propose an evaluation of the intervention to Itla’s Early Interventions experts. The effectiveness of a intervention that has already been assessed should be reassessed if, for example, new effectiveness research has been published on the intervention.

Early Interventions experts first assess whether the intervention meets the inclusion criteria. The intervention should have:

• Objective: The intervention a) promotes the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of children and young people or b) prevents and treats mental health problems of children and young people directly or indirectly at an early stage.
• Limited target group: The target group of the intervention is limited to children under the age of 18, young people and their parents and guardians. The intervention is used in children’s and young people’s growth and development environments, such as at school, home or hobbies.
• Scientific theoretical basis
• Training: Training on the intervention is available in Finland or it can be arranged if necessary. The training and training materials are available in Finnish, Swedish or English.
• Compliance with ethical principles

With regard to an intervention being reassessed, it will also be assessed whether the intervention evaluation may change in the light of new research.

We do not assess diagnostic evaluation interventions or indicators. Additionally, we do not assess unlimited therapeutic interventions.

New intervention

The Early Interventions scientific editorial board approves a new intervention for effectiveness evaluation when the inclusion criteria are met. At the same time, the editorial board decides on the order of evaluation of the interventions if there are several methods to be evaluated at the same time.

The order of evaluation is influenced by:

• the needs of children and young people
• timeliness of the political decision related to the phenomenon and intervention
• the scope of use of the intervention in the field
• the novelty value of the intervention in terms of the target group and phenomenon as a supplement to the selection of interventions

Intervention to be re-evaluated

Early Interventions experts will re-evaluate an intervention if the inclusion criteria for the intervention are still met. The experts will also decide on the order of evaluation if there are several interventions to be evaluated at the same time.

The evaluation order is primarily influenced by new effectiveness research published on the intervention.

Secondarily, the order is influenced by:

• the needs of children and young people
• timeliness of the political decision-making related to the phenomenon and intervention
• the scope of use of the intervention in the field

The proposer of the intervention will be informed either of the start of the evaluation process or that the intervention will not be evaluated.

In the latter case, we will also provide feedback.

The assessment of the effectiveness of the intervention involves Early Interventions assessment experts and evaluators trained by Early Interventions. At the beginning of the evaluation process, Early Interventions assessment experts and the intervention maintainers meet and start their cooperation: the meeting covers the intervention bank, evaluation process, schedule and intervention to be assessed.

After this, the Early Interventions experts look for independent evaluators to participate in the evaluation. According to the current criteria, one of the evaluators must have received a doctorate. Both evaluators understand intervention research and familiarise themselves well with the intervention and research literature.

The Early Interventions experts start by conducting a systematic search for literature on the intervention to be assessed and looking through the literature for impact, implementation and cost-effectiveness studies on the intervention. Next, the evaluators work on the intervention evaluation and the systematic literature review.

Before publishing the updated evaluation, the evaluation is sent to the organisation that maintains the intervention, the implementer of the intervention and the peer reviewer, who assess the quality of the evaluation. After this, the Chairman of the Early Interventions scientific editorial board approves the new evaluation.

Once the intervention has been evaluated, we will publish it as a systematic literature review in the Kasvun tuki journal and in the intervention bank on Itla’s website.