The following resources describe and provide examples of evidence-based or evidence-informed practices in family support and preservation services.
Cost-Effective Approaches to Improving Conditions for Maltreated Children and Accelerating Permanency Planning: A Review of Proven and Promising Programs for Reducing the Number of Children in Foster Care and a Rationale for Their Expansion: Executive Summary for Legislators and Other Policy-Makers (PDF - 442 KB)
Casey Family Programs (2009)
Discusses the need for child welfare and allied services to prevent and treat child maltreatment by addressing key risk and protective factors, reviewing the number of children in foster care and the negative consequences of foster care, and describing programs that have successfully retained children safely in their family homes.
Families Overcoming Under Stress: Implementing Family-Centered Prevention for Military Families Facing Wartime Deployments and Combat Operational Stress
Lester, Mogil, Saltzman, Woodward, Nash, & Leskin
Military Medicine, 176(1), 2011
Describes the development and implementation of Families Overcoming Under Stress (FOCUS), a family-centered, evidence-informed resiliency training program for military families, and presents an individual case study.
Federal Healthy Start Initiative: A National Network for Effective Home Visitation and Family Support Services (PDF - 2,080 KB)
National Healthy Start Association (2010)
Highlights the success of the Federal Healthy Start Initiative and explores its role in the Affordable Care Act Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program's national efforts to build quality, comprehensive statewide early childhood systems for pregnant women, parents, caregivers, and children from birth to age 8.
The HOMEBUILDERS Model of Intensive Family-Preservation Services
Booth & Leavitt (2012)
In Programs and Interventions for Maltreated Children and Families at Risk: Clinician's Guide to Evidence-Based Practice
Profiles the Homebuilders program, which provides families with intensive, time-limited, home- and community-based family preservation services designed to prevent unnecessary out-of-home placements and to expedite the return of children from placement. Key components of the program are described and include therapists that provide cognitive behavioral interventions and case management.
Lessons From Family-Strengthening Interventions: Learning From Evidence-Based Practice (PDF - 134 KB)
Caspe & Lopez (2006)
Harvard Family Research Project
Examines a sample of the best program and evaluation practices of family-strengthening intervention programs that provide support to parents and seek to change family behaviors and environments to encourage healthy child development.
The Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation: Early Impacts on Low-Income Families
Hsueh, Alderson, Lundquist, Michalopoulos, Gubits, Fein et al. (2012)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation
Presents a 12-month impact results study from a demonstration designed to strengthen marriages among low-income married couples with children. The study shows that the program produced a consistent pattern of small, positive effects on multiple aspects of couples' relationships, including measures of relationship quality, psychological and physical abuse, and adult individual psychological distress.
Supporting Refugee Families: Adapting Family Strengthening Programs That Build on Assets (PDF - 93 KB)
Bridging Refugee Youth and Children's Services (2010)
Explores how service providers in the United States can build on refugees' family and community strengths while also helping ease their transition into a different cultural context in which to raise their children.