Archways is a national organisation promoting and researching the use of evidence based programmes as an intervention for young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties and also as a means to prevent such difficulties arising in the first place. Archways was established in January 2007 to promote the rollout and evaluation of the Incredible Years programme in Ireland. Other effective interventions will be added in the coming years. We will also be working closely with Clondalkin Partnership to pilot Functional Family Therapy.

Objective: Research demonstrates that interventions targeting multiple settings within a child's life are more effective in treating or preventing conduct disorder. One such program is the Incredible Years Series, which comprises three treatment components, each focused on a different context and type of daily social interaction that a child encounters. This article explores the cost-effectiveness of stacking multiple intervention components versus delivering single intervention components. Method: The data involved 459 children, ages 3 to 8, who participated in clinical trials of the Incredible Years Series. Children randomized to one of six treatment conditions received one or more of the three following program components: a child-based program, a parent training program, and a teacher-based program instructing teachers in classroom management and in the delivery of a classroom-based social skills curriculum. Results: Per-child treatment costs and child behavior outcomes (observer and teacher reported) were used to generate cost-effectiveness acceptability curves; results suggest that stacking intervention components is likely cost-effective, at least for willingness to pay above $3,000 per child treated. Conclusions: Economic data may be used to compare competing intervention formats. In the case of this program, providing multiple intervention components was cost-effective.