Youth social action-activities such as volunteering, campaigning, and fundraising-has gained traction in the UK and internationally in recent years as governments have supported initiatives to encourage adolescents to develop a 'habit' of social action. However, there is not convincing evidence on what a habit of social action is. This study involved a questionnaire with 4518 16-20-yearolds in the UK and finds that moral and civic virtue identity, perceived behavioural control, goal direction, and subjective norms are related to a habit of youth social action. A key contribution of this study is the development and application of a new measure of virtue identity-the Virtue Identity Measure-to which we pay particular attention in this article.

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Wales has seen a rise in both the number and rate of children looked after. The rate is now higher than any time since the 1980s. In addition, Wales has consistently had more children looked after per 10,000 of the population than the rest of the UK. This trend is a cause for concern; particularly the impact on the outcomes of children who are taken into care in terms of educational attainment, health, unemployment, homelessness, and criminal justice. Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to have worsened the situation. To understand better the factors influencing care rates, the Welsh Government commissioned the Wales Centre for Public Policy and the Centre for Children’s Social Care Research and Development (CASCADE) at Cardiff University to undertake a survey with the children’s social care (CSC) workforce.

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Building on our work to increase the impact of the What Works network across the UK, the Wales Centre for Public Policy won funding from the ESRC to work with Professor Jonathan Sharples at EEF and other What Works Centres to apply the latest thinking and evidence on implementation – how evidence is used in decision making – to the What Works network. What Works Centres face similar challenges on implementation, and the principles, evidence and strategies that underpin effective implementation are often transferrable across different fields. The project looked at developing a common infrastructure for implementation across the network, including shared language, models, guidance, tools and capacity.