These practices have been identified by their developers or an outside group as "promising practices." Child Welfare Information Gateway provides this information as a resource. Our library does not define specific criteria for promising practices or make any claims about the effectiveness of the approaches described.

Evidence-Based Practices and Systems of Care: Implementation Matters (PDF - 167 KB)
Israel, Hodges, Ferreira, & Mazza (2007)
Presents strategies critical to successfully implementing evidence-based practices within systems of care based on the experiences of system of care communities.

Guidelines for Best Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (PDF - 690 KB)
Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (2001)
Offers a set of qualitative standards based on experiences within the children's system of care. The documents address a range of tasks, issues, and topics and are intended to help agencies and practitioners achieve a high quality of care.

Making Interagency Initiatives Work for Children and Families in the Child Welfare System
Hepburn & McCarthy (2003)
In Promising Approaches for Behavioral Health Services to Children and Adolescents and Their Families in Managed Care Systems
Describes how the child welfare system is participating in collaborative interagency initiatives designed to serve children with serious and complex behavioral health disorders..

Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health
Works to strengthen the empirical foundation for effective systems of care and improve services for children with serious emotional or behavioral disorders and their families through research, training, consultation, and dissemination activities.

What Works: System Development Strategies Across Communities (PDF - 244 KB)
Ferreira, Hodges, Kukla-Acevedo, & Mazza (2008)
Provides cross-site analyses of critical system implementation factors identified by stakeholders within six exemplary system of care communities and synthesizes common themes identified at each site.