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.

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?