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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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Youth Empowerment Program (Manchester, NH)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Employment, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to give Manchester area youth tools to earn their GEDs and meet their career goals.

Youth Suicide Public Service Announcement (PSA) (Suburban Chicago)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: Community Memorial Foundation's goal was two-fold: to decrease stigma surrounding youth depression and suicide and increase teen utilization of the Crisis Text Line.

Impact: An awareness campaign that incorporates age- and culturally-appropriate actors through various media can successfully increase teen and adolescent usage of a crisis text hotline.

Youth Together (Oakland)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Civic Engagement, Children, Urban

Goal: The mission of Youth Together is to develop the potential of youth to be critical thinkers, engaged community members, and social change agents in their schools and communities.

Youth Uprising (Oakland, CA)

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

Goal: Youth UpRising aims to build youth leadership and affect positive community change by ensuring that youth and young adults are supported in the following key areas:
- Consciousness Raising that exposes them to a broader set of realities to develop their capacity to think critically about personal and community experiences;
- Personal Transformation that builds their capacity to transform experiences of trauma and oppression into opportunities for positive personal and community change; and
- Hard Skill/Leadership Development that increases their creativity, strengths, and skills as effective leaders who are competitive in the marketplace.

YouthBuild McLean County (McLean County, IL)

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

Goal: The McLean County program's mission is "to offer young people a once in a lifetime opportunity to build their futures and their communities through education, leadership development, job training, and the rehabilitation and production of affordable housing, while keeping a profound respect for and a commitment to real partnership with youth."

5-A-Day Power Plus (St. Paul, MN)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children

Goal: To increase fruit and vegetable consumption among children using a multi-component approach.

A Disinfection and Hand Hygiene Program for Schools (USA)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Adults, Families

Goal: To reduce gastrointestinal and respiratory illness-related absenteeism in elementary school students by using surface disinfectants.

Across Ages

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to enhance the resiliency of children in order to promote positive development and prevent them from engaging in high-risk behaviors such as substance use, early sexual activity, or violence.

Impact: Studies of the program showed that participants' reactions to situations involving drug use and their attitudes toward school, the future, and elders were significantly better than those without the intervention. Students in the program also had fewer days absent from school than nonparticipants.

Asthma Outreach Program (Seattle)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goals of the project were to assess the feasibility of the Asthma Outreach Worker model and evaluate any impact on unscheduled health service use for asthma.

Be Active Kids® (North Carolina)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children

Goal: The goal of the Be Active Kids program is to promote healthy lifestyles and good healthy by giving young children the tools they need to develop positive physical activity and nutrition habits.

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.