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.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Governance, Children, Urban
Goal: To advocate for children and help them resolve their most pressing legal problem: being in the custody of the state when they need to be in the custody of a family - biological or adoptive - within the 12 months provided by law.
Impact: Children represented by the Foster's Children Project were more likely to exit the foster system to permanency due to higher rates of adoption and long-term custody, but not reunification, than their peers not represented by FCP.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The Hair, Heart & Health program embraces the notion that health education at the community level is an effective intervention strategy for preventable diseases like CHD, stroke and kidney disease.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke
Goal: The goal of the Hartslag Limburg intervention is to reduce heart disease among low-income, high-risk community members.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Women
Goal: The goal of CBFRS is to advance the health and development of first-time mothers and infants through a home visit program.
Impact: The findings indicate positive health and safety outcomes for first-time mothers and infants in the program: higher household safety levels, higher use of birth control methods, lower smoking behavior, higher knowledge of the effects of smoking on child development, and higher use of county clinics.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Governance
Goal: The goal of Health in All Policies is to ensure that health effects are routinely taken into consideration when developing policy.
Impact: Health in All Policies initiatives have helped create healthier communities through implementing policies with health consequences in mind. For many counties, this includes creating cross-agency teams and workgroups to address problems in their community.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children
Goal: The goal of the HOPS program was to improve overall health status and academic achievement using replicable strategies.
Impact: The HOPS intervention helped students who qualified for free or reduced price meals both stay within the normal BMI percentile and score higher on their state math achievement test.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The mission of the program is to shape the evolving health system by developing and spreading high-value models of community-based care and self-management for diverse populations with chronic conditions.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: To educate the Chinese Canadian immigrant community on Hepatitis B knowledge and to promote Hepatitis B testing through ESL curriculum.
Impact: The Chinese immigrant population in North America has a rate of Hepatitis B infection that is 10 times higher than the general population's rate of approximately 0.5 percent. The Hepatitis B ESL curriculum is effective in increasing knowledge about Hepatitis B among Chinese immigrants in Canada.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety, Older Adults
Goal: The mission of the program is to shape the evolving health system by developing and spreading high-value models of community-based care and self-management for diverse populations with chronic conditions.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children
Goal: The goal of this program is to teach children effective problem-solving skills.
Impact: Studies demonstrated that ICPS participants scored better than the control group on impulsiveness, inhibition, and total behavior problems; showed fewer high-risk behaviors than never-trained controls; showed improvement in positive, prosocial behaviors and decreases in antisocial behaviors; and performed better on standardized achievement tests.