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Promising Practices

The Promising Practices database informs professionals and community members about documented approaches to improving community health and quality of life.

The ultimate goal is to support the systematic adoption, implementation, and evaluation of successful programs, practices, and policy changes. The database provides carefully reviewed, documented, and ranked practices that range from good ideas to evidence-based practices.
Learn more about the ranking methodology.

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Child Sexual Abuse Prevention: Teacher Training Workshop

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Children

Goal: The training provides an opportunity for teachers to (1) explore their own sexual and abuse-related issues and opinions; (2) determine and build upon their knowledge of the symptoms of abuse; and (3) understand their legal and ethical responsibilities as teachers.

Child-Parent Center (Chicago, IL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Urban

Goal: The goals of this program are to provide a stable learning environment that will promote scholastic development, to enhance parent-child relationships, and to prevent delinquency.

Children of Divorce Intervention Program (CODIP) (Rochester, NY)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children

Goal: The program's five main goals are to (1) foster a safe, supportive group environment; (2) facilitate the identification and expression of divorce-related feelings; (3) promote understanding of divorce-related concepts and clarify misconceptions; (4) teach effective coping and interpersonal skills; and (5) enhance positive perceptions of self and family.

Children's Futures (Trenton)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families

Goal: Children's Futures' mission is to improve child health and developmental outcomes through public-private collaboration.

Children's National Parish Nursing Program (Washington, D.C.)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal is to increase awareness in faith-based communities regarding preventative care for children and services available at Children's National Medical Center for patients and families.

Impact: The Parish Nursing Program will train eight nurses to become Faith Community Nurses in Summer 2013.

Circles of Hope (St. Louis, MO)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Civic Engagement, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: WomanSpirit aims to foster grassroots women's leadership in the St. Louis area by claiming safe community space for women's mutual support and training, gaining access to government funds for women's economic development, and achieving positions in local, regional and national decision-making bodies.

Club HERO (Helping Everyone Reach Out) (Atlanta, GA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of Club HERO is encourage feelings of support at home and school and increase knowledge about the harmful effects of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs to prevent youths' drug use.

Coalition for Community Schools (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens, Families

Goal: Coalition for Community Schools’ mission is to mobilize the resources and capacity of multiple sectors and institutions to create a united movement for community schools.

Come Home Baltimore (Baltimore, MD)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: Come Home Baltimore is an initiative to develop "better than new" market rate housing and foster forward thinking and grassroots social change towards sustainable community development.

Communicable Disease Prevention/Public Health Preparedness: HealthSentry (Kansas City, MO)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Goal: The goal of HealthSentry is to meet the challenge of linking public health organizations to reliable clinical data without burdensome manual data collection and reporting.more timely and accurate reporting.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.

A Good Idea meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
  2. The program evaluation is limited to descriptive measure(s) of success/accomplishment (i.e., program participation rates, number of services/education sessions/radio messages provided). Note: oftentimes, the program has been newly implemented and a program evaluation has not yet been conducted. Programs that have not yet been evaluated, but which show promise in improving health or quality of life, are classified as Good Ideas until an evaluation is conducted.

An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
  3. The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.