Case Studies
The case studies provided here demonstrate how the PD approach is used in different communities with intractable problems around the world. These case studies illustrate the feelings of the participating communities from the first community meeting, all the way to implementation of the PD approach, and chronicle the dramatic effect that the approach has on improving the lives of the people living in the communities.
Africa | Asia | Europe | North America
Africa
A case study that utilizes the Positive Deviance approach to address issues facing previously abducted girl soldiers from the Lords Resistance Army in their reintegration into the camps in Pader, Uganda.
Asia
A team from The Welfare Improvement Network (WIN) implements a UN Innovation Lab to create, accelerate and sustain change in Palestine with PD
A PD story on children’s nutrition and health from Indonesia after the recent 2018 earthquake and tsunami in Sulawesi
Explores the use of the Positive Deviance approach to tackle low enrollment rate and high secondary school dropouts rate among adolescent Lebanese and Syrian refugee girls in Tripoli, Lebanon
A case study on using Positive Deviance to address low employee satisfaction ratings and high rates of employee turnover in a company division dominated by women in Japan.
This case study focuses on the improvement the bathing assistance of elderly people in Japan using Positive Deviance and Discovery and Action Dialogue (DAD) strategies.
Listen to Vietnamese locals speak about the impacts of the Positive Deviance Initiative from the 1990s on their communities and read about Monique Sternin’s recent return to Thanh Hoa 25 years later.
Europe
In this project, the stories of domestic violence and abuse in Moldova and Serbia from Geronto housewives and the elderly, respectively are highlighted by researchers in Belgrade.
This publication highlights “approaches that work" in facilitating the integration of Roma minority into the majority population of Slovakia with examples from four different villages.
Researchers use the Positive Deviance approach to try to find out which conditions and circumstances in life stories of young people from marginalized Roma communities (MRC) are supportive and lead to success in formal education.
The Grub Hub was a place where parents could go with their children after the school run, where they are all provided with a hot meal and can relax and socialise together. The Grub Hub emerged as a project following Positive Deviance training in 2014 in Cambridgeshire and ultimately provided invaluable support to local families.
Watch the Romanian Red Cross share their success using positive deviance to find solutions to everyday problems in local schools.
Software company SXT uses the PD approach to better engage with patients and healthcare workers in order to provide services that help reduce the spread of sexually transmitted infections.
Together with the National Romanian Red Cross and the local Brasov branch office, PD facilitators formed and trained a PD innovation team to help initiate and sustain the approach in two projects aimed at reducing school drop-outs in the Roma community.
A case study on using PD in the business sector for improving the success of an automotive dealership
North America
The Stanford d.school’s K12 Lab is focused on obliterating opportunity gaps in K-12 education by helping schools apply a design thinking approach to messy, complex, systemic problems that impact their students. When former d.school fellow Marc Chun was introduced to positive deviance and discovered a process intuitive and ripe for application across under-resourced K-12 schools struggling with systemic problems. The Positive Deviance for Educators project was born.
Using the PD approach, the Family Center of an NGO in Hawaii decided to focus on the strengths, assets, and resourcefulness of the Native Micronesian families and launched the Sundays Project, turning the educational tide. As a result, Native Micronesian families are now deeply engaged in, and contributing to, their children’s academic success.
VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System uses PD to expand the MRSA Prevention Program to achieve a 80% reduction in MRSA infection rates at 150+ Acute Care Medical Centers and Nursing Homes.
The School District of Menomonee Falls used the Positive Deviance framework to determine positive deviant 3rd – 5th grade teachers in the area of literacy instruction, leading to positive results in student learning.
A PD strategy was applied in two mental health service settings to the problem of social isolation of people with mental illness. It provided a catalyst for people struggling with mental illness to self-organize, support each other, and learn from socially active peers about how to connect in a meaningful way with their communities.
A focus on the agro-ecological community and stakeholders involved in Puerto Rico after Hurricane María
Representatives from the Western District of Texas’ probation office and federal court, with help of representatives from The University of Texas at El Paso decided to ask a PD question: Are there any individuals who have recently completed their terms of supervised release or are on their way to completion (within 12 months) despite the demographic, situational, and dispositional odds against them?
Watch how PD Israel uses the Positive Deviance approach and edutainment to address child abuse in Bedouin society.