Inventory of Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs) for Healthy Start Programs

Evidence-based practices include actions, activities, strategies, or approaches that improve the health of women, before, during, and after pregnancy in order to improve birth outcomes and give infants up to age two years a healthy start. Also included in the collection are informational materials and tools that make it easier to implement evidence-based practices. To search by title, use the main search box located at the top of this page.

Most Recently Added EBPs:

Number of results: 16


ACOG Postpartum Toolkit

Often referred to as “The Fourth Trimester,” the weeks after birth are a critical time for a woman and her infant, setting the stage for long-term health and well-being. This comprehensive toolkit, with an introduction by Dr. Haywood Brown, includes extensive resources on the key components of postpartum care, including support for new mothers, reproductive life planning, infant care, counseling for substance use, long-term weight management, and many more pertinent topics. It also features a sample postpartum checklist for women to complete.

Topics:

Alcohol/Drug Services Breastfeeding Chronic Disease Depression Healthy Weight Immunization Intimate Partner Violence Reproductive Life Planning/Family Planning Safe Sleep Tobacco Cessation

Approaches:

Improve Women's Health Promote Quality Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Initiating Breastfeeding Intimate Partner Violence Perinatal Depression Follow Up Perinatal Depression Screening Postpartum Visit Reproductive Life Plan Safe Sleep Smoking Abstinence Sustaining Breastfeeding

Evidence Rating: III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.

Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan: A Technical Package of Programs, Policies and Practices

This technical package represents a select group of evidence-based strategies and approaches to help programs, communities and states sharpen their focus on prevention activities with the greatest potential to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV) and its consequences across the lifespan. These strategies include teaching safe and healthy relationship skills; engaging influential adults and peers; disrupting the developmental pathways toward IPV; creating protective environments; strengthening economic supports for families; and supporting survivors to increase safety and lessen harms. Commitment, cooperation, and leadership from numerous sectors, including public health, education, justice, health care, social services, business and labor, and government can bring about the successful implementation of this package.

Topics:

Intimate Partner Violence Life Course Model Parenting Education Partner Involvement

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Father/Partner Parenting Involvement Father/Partner Prenatal Involvement Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: I. Evidence-based practices—have been rigorously evaluated and shown to be effective by MCH experts.

The Good Road of Life

This culture-based program uses sources of strength such as spirituality, humor, and healing to assist Native men and their family members address the impact of colonization, trauma, racism and other challenges that threaten the well-being of children and families. The curriculum for Native men is designed to assist Native men reclaim their roles as brave warriors, fathers, and husbands who provide for and protect their families and communities. The curriculum for Native families is designed to assist Native men, women, and their children to address unresolved conflicts in relationships, improve communication skills, and keep Native families together.

Topics:

Alcohol/Drug Services Depression Intimate Partner Violence Partner Involvement

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Father/Partner Parenting Involvement Father/Partner Prenatal Involvement Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.

2018 Prevention Resource Guide

This prevention resource guide offers information, strategies, and resources to support community service providers as they work with parents, caregivers, and children to prevent child maltreatment and promote social and emotional well-being. The guide focuses on protective factors that build on family strengths and promote optimal child and youth development. Information about protective factors is augmented with tools and strategies that help providers, advocates and policymakers integrate the factors into community programs and systems. The guide includes tip sheets for parents in English and Spanish on a range of parenting and child development topics.

Topics:

Intimate Partner Violence Life Course Model Parenting Education Partner Involvement Socio-emotional Development for Children

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Father/Partner Parenting Involvement Father/Partner Prenatal Involvement Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.

IPV Health Partners Toolkit

This toolkit is designed to help health centers to build a comprehensive and sustainable response to domestic violence and sexual assault (DV/SA) in partnership with DV/SA advocacy programs (social service organizations).Through five essential steps, health centers and social service partners can build partnerships, adopt evidence-based interventions, promote patient education around IPV, and enhance practice policies, procedures, and capacities to improve long-term health and safety outcomes for women and their families.

Topics:

Case Management/Care Coordination Intimate Partner Violence Patient-centered Medical Home Risk Assessment

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.

Safe Homes, Safe Babies: Perinatal Safety Card

Safe Homes, Safe Babies is a safety card for women that perinatal health care providers can distribute to patients. In addition to providing safety resources for women, this tool also functions as a prompt for perinatal health care providers by providing quick phrases to improve discussions with women about the impact of domestic violence on their parenting and children. The safety card outlines questions women may ask themselves about their relationships, birth control use and parenting, while offering supportive messages and referrals to national support services for help.

Topics:

Depression Intimate Partner Violence Risk Assessment

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence Perinatal Depression Screening

Evidence Rating: III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.

WINGS (Women Initiating New Goals of Safety)

Failure to address IPV among women who use alcohol or other drugs has been found to increase the likelihood of continued drug use, relapse, attrition from drug treatment and a host of other negative physical and mental health consequences. WINGS is a single-session intervention that aims to address a critical gap in IPV services for women by identifying women in the community at risk of IPV, enabling them to develop social support and safety planning skills to reduce their risks for IPV and linking them to IPV-related services and substance use treatment. The intervention may be delivered in-person or via a computerized self-paced version.

Topics:

Alcohol/Drug Services Intimate Partner Violence

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: II. Promising practices—Innovative practices employed in the field, based on state-of-science knowledge about what works to improve outcomes, and gathering evidence of effectiveness.

4Ps Plus©

4Ps Plus© is the first validated instrument that has been developed to screen for alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use; depression; and domestic violence, specifically in pregnant women. In addition, brief intervention strategies, grounded in motivational interviewing techniques, are integrated into the screening process. “I am concerned…” is an interactive, multisensory psychoeducational approach that takes about five minutes and is administered to all women who are found through the screening process to be using alcohol, tobacco, or illicit drugs.

Topics:

Alcohol/Drug Services Depression Intimate Partner Violence Prenatal Care and Education Risk Assessment Tobacco Cessation

Approaches:

Promote Quality Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence Perinatal Depression Screening Smoking Abstinence

Evidence Rating: II. Promising practices—Innovative practices employed in the field, based on state-of-science knowledge about what works to improve outcomes, and gathering evidence of effectiveness.

Period of PURPLE Crying Program

The Period of PURPLE Crying program consists of a video and booklet that help new parents understand and safely cope with infant crying, the most common trigger for shaken baby syndrome. The materials describe normal infant crying, explain the easy-to-remember acronym PURPLE (with each letter standing for various features of infant crying), suggest strategies for comforting a baby, acknowledge caregiver frustration when a baby cannot be soothed, explain the dangers of shaking the infant, and outline a positive approach for handling an inconsolable infant. Labor and delivery or discharge nurses distribute these materials to new parents prior to hospital discharge. Pediatricians, public health workers, adoption agencies, and other organizations may also distribute these materials or reinforce their messages, which may be complemented by a public education campaign. There is also a website for parents.

Topics:

Parenting Education

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: I. Evidence-based practices—have been rigorously evaluated and shown to be effective by MCH experts.

Strengthening Families

Strengthening Families is a research-informed approach to increase family strengths, enhance child development and reduce the likelihood of child abuse and neglect. It is a systems development approach based on engaging families, programs and communities in building five protective factors: parental resilience, social connections, knowledge of parenting and child development, concrete support in times of need, social and emotional competence of children. Supported by helpful material that can be adopted and adapted for any program or service sector, including a program self-assessment to improve practice, an online data system, an online training curriculum, and the Strengthening Families national network.

Topics:

Other Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence Reading to Child Daily

Evidence Rating: I. Evidence-based practices—have been rigorously evaluated and shown to be effective by MCH experts.

The Nurturing Parent Programs

The Nurturing Parenting Programs are a family-centered trauma-informed initiative designed to build nurturing parenting skills as an alternative to abusive and neglecting parenting and child-rearing practices. The long term goals are to prevent recidivism in families receiving social services, lower the rate of teenage pregnancies, reduce the rate of juvenile delinquency and alcohol abuse, and stop the intergenerational cycle of child abuse by teaching positive parenting behaviors.

Lessons can be delivered in home setting, group setting, or combination. Nurturing Parents offer targeted programs for prenatal families, parents of babies and toddlers, parents of older children, Spanish speaking parents, parents of children with health challenges, teen parents, military parents, parents in substance abuse treatment and recovery, and more.

Topics:

Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Father/Partner Parenting Involvement Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: I. Evidence-based practices—have been rigorously evaluated and shown to be effective by MCH experts.

SafeCare Augmented

SafeCare aims to prevent and address factors associated with child abuse and neglect. Eligible clients include families with a history of child maltreatment or families at risk for child maltreatment. SafeCare provides 18 to 22 weeks of training to parents with children from birth to age 5. During weekly or biweekly home visits, trained home visitors conduct baseline and follow-up assessments, observations, and trainings with parents. Trainings focus on three modules: 1) infant and child health, 2) home safety, and 3) parent-child interactions. SafeCare Augmented adds motivational interviewing and additional training of home visitors on identification and response to imminent child maltreatment and risk factors, such as substance abuse and depression. SafeCare Augmented was adapted for high-risk, rural communities. Only SafeCare Augmented is considered an evidence-based practice by HomVEE.

Topics:

Home Visiting Intimate Partner Violence Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: II. Promising practices—Innovative practices employed in the field, based on state-of-science knowledge about what works to improve outcomes, and gathering evidence of effectiveness.

Child FIRST

Child FIRST aims to decrease the incidence of abuse and neglect, developmental and learning problems, and emotional and behavioral disturbance among high-risk children and families. Provides home visiting services to pregnant women and families with children up to 6 years old. Includes a comprehensive assessment of child and family needs, parent-child mental health intervention, observation and consultation in early care and education, development of a child and family plan of care, and care coordination and case management.

Topics:

Home Visiting Intimate Partner Violence Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: I. Evidence-based practices—have been rigorously evaluated and shown to be effective by MCH experts.

Text4Baby

Text4baby is a free mobile information service designed to promote maternal and child health through text messaging. Lasts through pregnancy until baby’s first birthday. The messages address topics such as prenatal care, labor signs and symptoms, urgent alerts, breastfeeding, nutrition, exercise, oral health, immunizations, birth defect prevention, developmental milestones, safe sleep, family violence, injury prevention, mental health, substance abuse, car seat safety, and more.

Topics:

Alcohol/Drug Services Breastfeeding Depression Intimate Partner Violence Nutrition Parenting Education Safe Sleep

Approaches:

Promote Quality Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Initiating Breastfeeding Intimate Partner Violence Perinatal Depression Follow Up Safe Sleep Sustaining Breastfeeding

Evidence Rating: I. Evidence-based practices—have been rigorously evaluated and shown to be effective by MCH experts.

Health Cares About IPV

This toolkit for providers offered by Futures without Violence® includes assessment tools for screening women for IPV in a clinical setting, and information on supported referral and counseling. Accompanying materials available for purchase include promotional materials for healthcare settings, and the publication Addressing Intimate Partner Violence, Reproductive and Sexual Coercion: A Guide for Obstetric, Gynecologic and Reproductive Health Care Settings.

Topics:

Intimate Partner Violence

Approaches:

Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence

Evidence Rating: III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.

CDC’s Information for Men on Preconception Health and Health Care

Men’s portion of the CDC’s information on preconception health and health care. Includes information on making a reproductive life plan for men, preventing and treating sexually transmitted diseases, tobacco and drug cessation, infertility, maintaining a healthy weight, learning about family history, getting help for violence, getting mentally healthy, and supporting one’s partner.

Topics:

Alcohol/Drug Services Chronic Disease Depression Healthy Weight Intimate Partner Violence Partner Involvement Reproductive Life Planning/Family Planning STDs including HIV Tobacco Cessation

Approaches:

Improve Women's Health Strengthen Family Resilience

Benchmarks:

Intimate Partner Violence Reproductive Life Plan

Evidence Rating: III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.