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.
Mothers and Babies (MB) is a program that promotes healthy mood management by teaching pregnant women and new moms how to effectively respond to stress in their lives through increasing the frequency of thoughts and behaviors that lead to positive mood states. Designed as a perinatal depression prevention, the Mothers and Babies targets three specific risk factors: limited social support, lack of pleasant activities, and harmful thought patterns. Mothers and Babies offers a “toolkit” of approaches for women to observe their mood, note factors affecting their mood, and make changes in their daily lives to impact these areas. Based on principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), attachment theory, and psychoeducation, the Mothers and Babies Course is designed to be delivered by clinic- or community-based providers from a variety of educational and professional backgrounds, and can be delivered as a group intervention or as a one-on-one intervention in various settings where pregnant women access services (e.g. prenatal clinics, home visiting programs, WIC programs, County Health Departments, etc.).
Topics:
Depression Home Visiting Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Mental Health Parenting Education Prenatal Care and Education
Approaches:
Strengthen Family Resilience
Benchmarks:
Perinatal Depression Follow Up Perinatal Depression Screening
Evidence Rating:
I. Evidence-based practices—have been rigorously evaluated and shown to be effective by MCH experts.
The Boston Basics Campaign is inspired by the fact that 80% of brain growth happens in the first three years of life. During this period, skill gaps between socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic groups become clearly apparent, but this does not need to be. Everyday interactions between children, their parents, and other caregivers provide abundant opportunities to give children from every background a more equal start in life. The Basics are five, fun, simple, and powerful ways that every family can give every child a strong start beginning from birth: 1) maximize love, manage stress, 2) talk, sing and point, 3) count, group and compare, 4) explore through movement and play, and 5) read and discuss stories. The Basics Community Toolkit provides multi-media resources that healthcare and community-based organizations can use to engage and support parents and other caregivers in practicing these basics.The Boston Basics website and materials are also available in Spanish.
Topics:
Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children
Approaches:
Strengthen Family Resilience
Benchmarks:
Father/Partner Parenting Involvement Father/Partner Prenatal Involvement Reading to Child Daily
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
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.
This webpage offers resources for providers and families on safe sleep practices. Resources for providers include the AAP Policy Statement: SIDS and Other Sleep-Related Infant Deaths: Updated 2016 Recommendations for a Safe Infant Sleeping Environment. Resources for families include a videos, posters and infographics on safe sleep practices.
Topics:
Parenting Education Safe Sleep
Approaches:
Promote Quality
Benchmarks:
Safe Sleep
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
Connected Kids is a program of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) designed to address the important issue of violence prevention. One third of the program is devoted to infants and toddlers, and contains suggested anticipatory guidance, a counseling schedule, and recommended educational brochures. Covered issues include handling parental frustration, disciplining toddlers, safety in the home, and a discussion of firearms. Although the program is designed for pediatricians, it could be useful to anyone working with parents of young children.
Topics:
Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children
Approaches:
Benchmarks:
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
The American Academy of Pediatrics FASD Toolkit was developed in coordination with the CDC to raise awareness, promote surveillance and screening, and ensure that all children who possibly have FASDs receive appropriate and timely interventions. Focused primarily on providers, it features basic information on FASD, diagnostic tools for use in children suspected of being affected, evidence-based interventions, and guidelines for case management/care coordination. The site also contains FAQ and a list of resources for families and school professionals who care for children with FASD.
Topics:
Alcohol/Drug Services Case Management/Care Coordination Parenting Education
Approaches:
Benchmarks:
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
This manual is designed for training community health workers on how to support expecting and new mothers with depression, using evidence-based cognitive behavioral techniques. Community Health Workers can assist depressed mothers to change their unhealthy patterns of thinking and behavior, leading to an improvement in their mood and functioning, and prevention of later problems in their infants. The manual provides a step-by-step guide for CHWs implementing the Thinking Healthy intervention in 15 sessions with mothers (from pregnancy through baby’s first 10 months), and includes a structured process for each session, activities, worksheets and charts, and communication tips. This manual is a generic version for global use of a manual originally developed in Pakistan and later used in many other countries.
Topics:
Depression Parenting Education
Approaches:
Strengthen Family Resilience
Benchmarks:
Perinatal Depression Follow Up Perinatal Depression Screening
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
This component of the Child Development section of the CDC website provides information for parents on developmental milestones and positive parenting tips by age group, covering children 0-17 years of age. Age-specific injury prevention and safety advice as well as guidelines for promoting healthy bodies are also given. Parents or service providers for parents can download Positive Parenting Tip Sheets for use as take-home handouts.
Topics:
Parenting Education Partner Involvement Socio-emotional Development for Children
Approaches:
Promote Quality Strengthen Family Resilience
Benchmarks:
Father/Partner Parenting Involvement
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
Counseling parents and children about the prevention of common childhood injuries is an important contribution toward preventing the major cause of childhood morbidity and mortality. TIPP is designed to provide a systematic method for pediatricians to counsel parents and children about adopting behaviors to prevent injuries—behaviors that are effective and capable of being accomplished by most families.This Guide includes a table showing the major safety issues and injury hazards for each age group for children 0-10 years old, and provides counseling guidelines for educating parents about injury prevention tailored to the age of their child.
Topics:
Parenting Education
Approaches:
Benchmarks:
Well Child Visits
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
Reach Out and Read is an evidence-based non-profit organization of medical providers who promote early literacy and school readiness in pediatric exam rooms nationwide by integrating children’s books and advice to parents about the importance of reading aloud into well-child visits. Reach Out and Read builds on the unique relationship between parents and medical providers to develop critical early reading skills in children, beginning in infancy.
Topics:
Other Parenting Education
Approaches:
Strengthen Family Resilience
Benchmarks:
Reading to Child Daily
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.
These three brief (2-3 minute) videos explore resilience, a positive adaptive response to serious adversity in a young child’s life, and how it is built. A better understanding of how resilience develops can help develop policies and programs to help more children reach their full potential.
Topics:
Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children
Approaches:
Strengthen Family Resilience
Benchmarks:
Father/Partner Parenting Involvement
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
The Magic of Everyday Moments video series is designed to help parents and professionals understand how they can best help very young children thrive. The first in the series explores brain development, early literacy skills, the power of play, and temperament. The second examines development in each of the first three years of life.
Topics:
Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children
Approaches:
Strengthen Family Resilience
Benchmarks:
Father/Partner Parenting Involvement
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
The Touchpoints approach offers healthcare providers and early education professionals a framework to build better partnerships with families around mutual strengths-based caregiving and parent engagement, all of which benefit child outcomes. Rooted in child social, emotional and behavioral development, Touchpoints seeks to improve parent-provider relationships, improve provider relationships with each other, enhance parent-infant relationships, moderate parental stress, normalize parent’s perceptions of their child’s behavior, increase well-child care adherence, improve infant developmental outcomes, improve maternal mental health indicators, and encourage longer breastfeeding. A variety of professional tools, training activities and learning communities are offered for providers.
Topics:
Breastfeeding Other Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children
Approaches:
Promote Quality
Benchmarks:
Initiating Breastfeeding Sustaining Breastfeeding
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
: Learn the Signs, Act Early aims to improve early identification of children with autism and other developmental disabilities so children and families can get needed services and support. The program has three components: a health education campaign, the Act Early initiative, and research and evaluation. The campaign promotes awareness of healthy developmental milestones during childhood, and the importance of tracking each child’s development and acting early if there are concerns. The Act Early Initiative works with state, territorial and national partners to improve early childhood screening and referral systems. The program website includes many free materials for providers, health centers and parents, videos and other multimedia tools and training programs for providers.
Topics:
Parenting Education Socio-emotional Development for Children
Approaches:
Strengthen Family Resilience
Benchmarks:
Reading to Child Daily
Evidence Rating:
III. Expert guidelines—Protocols, standards of practice, or recommendations based on expert consensus.
