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One of the Bright Futures cornerstones is a commitment to educating families and communities to make the most of families’ strengths and to anticipate and deal with problems early.

• California — Bright Futures has been used in Healthy Smiles for Kids of Orange County, a large pediatric ambulatory care clinic, to develop a curriculum for oral health presentations as well as for patient education handouts. 
• Kansas — Bright Futures materials are typically used during home visits with parents and in child care settings with teachers. The Early Head Start office promotes the use of (1) Bright Futures in Practice: Oral Health Pocket Guide and (2) Bright Futures for Families: Lead Poisoning. The state has formed a Lead Committee to promote better outcomes for blood lead testing in the Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Bright Futures materials also were used for training at the 2005 Region 7 Head Start Conference in Kansas City, during which the Kansas Department of Health and Environment presented a workshop on lead.
• Louisiana — A program for low-income, first-time mothers and their babies used Bright Futures to improve quality and consistency of education and outreach efforts. Home visiting program staff members and other key informants refer to the Bright Futures guidelines as the “Bible for health education” and the “gold standard” for home visiting. They note the value of the materials for providing home visitors with clear language for speaking to high-risk families, especially on difficult topics such as mental health, violence, and sexuality.  
• Maine — Using the Bright Future approach, the state health department sends each MaineCare family reminders about scheduled well-child visits and a guide describing why preventive care is important. The guide explains what to expect during the medical and dental checkups and offers a section for parents to keep track of questions they wish to ask their provider. The goal is to increase each family’s confidence and competence in speaking with health providers about their child’s needs.
• New Jersey — Bright Futures is used in POrSCHe, a referral system for children who have lead poisoning. This ensures that families received accurate and consistent information.
• New Jersey — A child care consultant in Somerset County encourages families and health care professionals to use Bright Futures materials to identify developmental delays early and determine the best approaches for treating these delays.
• Oregon — An agency that cares for youth with special health care needs provides Bright Futures-based information for parents on child development. Agency staff also use the Bright Futures Mental Health Tool Kit as a reference and provide handouts from the tool kit to parents and families.
• South Carolina — The state has developed several activities for use in the child care setting to educate and engage young children in oral health. For example, the state’s Bright Futures-based Child Care Center Oral Health Training Curriculum includes activities for children as well as parent education sheets to reinforce lessons in the home. The state developed a ”Happy 1st Birthday” social marketing campaign based on Bright Futures oral health recommendations. The state department of health also is working with faith-based partners to implement an oral health education program incorporating Bright Futures messages in high-risk communities.
• Virginia —The state developed a New Parents Kit for distribution in hospitals. The kit contains easy-to-understand materials and resources for new families, including a baby’s first-year calendar and other information based on Bright Futures. Virginia estimates that 70 percent of new families received the kit in 2005 and the state’s governors have continued their strong support for the program in 2006 and 2007. Bright Futures Virginia is also developing a video for teens about the important of regular preventive health visits. Virginia also has successfully advocated to have Bright Futures materials on nutrition and physical activity included in the state’s physical education curriculum. Bright Futures also is used as a resource to develop Individual Education Plans (IEP) for children with special health care needs.