Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion

Practices that work

The 'Practices that work' section features three collections of practices being used throughout the European Union:

  • The collection of Evidence-Based Practices aims to share emerging, promising and best practices for children and families which are being implemented across the EU.
  • The Social Innovation Repository features practices that are innovative and have a clear theory of change, but as they have been developed in the past 5 years may not yet have sufficient evidence of their effectiveness.
  • The User Registry provides an overview of practices being implemented across Europe, which are shared in the spirit of collaboration.

These three registries are designed to complement each other and to provide a comprehensive picture of the most effective practices being used throughout the European Union.

Users can search for practices by country, 2013 Recommendation Pillar, age group, target group, and type of implementing organisation.

Submit a practice

EPIC is an open platform: innovative child-related practices can be submitted on the website via an online form, and stakeholders and users can send an email for further information.

Evidence guide

This evidence guide provides a starting point for policymakers who seek more information on how to use evidence to strengthen policies for investing in children.

The guide will familiarise users with the basics of some approaches to using evidence to inform policies related to children including

  • conducting needs assessments,
  • selecting practices that have shown promise in previous implementation,
  • developing a logic model to help plan a practice and determine if it has achieved its objectives,
  • conducting or overseeing various types of evaluation including theory-based evaluations and counterfactual impact evaluations.

The guide contains original material and also points users to existing useful material that is available for free on the Internet.

Implementation guide

This implementation guide is intended to provide the reader with research-based information on those implementation strategies that have been linked to successful programme implementation. The National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) identifies four stages of implementation:

  • Exploration, assessment of readiness for implementation.
  • Installation, the acquisition of resources required for implementation.
  • Initial implementation, in which the programme implementation is ramping up and programme staff are learning to execute the programme with fidelity.
  • Full implementation, which is reached when more than half of the programme staff are executing the new programme with fidelity and good outcomes.

While identifying and delivering Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs) that have been shown to successfully target the needs of a given population is critically important, without effective implementation, programmes are unlikely to succeed. The guide provides the reader with research-based information on how to most effectively support programme implementation.

The guide contains original material and also points users to existing useful material that is available for free on the Internet.

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