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 Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Families, Urban
The goal of Achievers for Life is to work with 6th grade students and their families in order to prevent students from dropping out of high school.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children
The initiative's mission was to create a citywide system to support and sustain high-quality after-school programs.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Teens
The mission of this program is to provide services that allow both victims and offenders to participate in a process where both parties have a sense of restored wholeness in their lives and in their communities. This wholeness is manifested when parties are feeling a sense of safety and trust in their communities and in their relationships with self and others. It is the goal of this organization to provide a sense of justice that repairs the damage done and restores relationships, both personal and communal, to their original state to the extent possible.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children
The goal of this program is to prevent delinquency, substance abuse, and school dropout in high risk children.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
The goal of All Stars programs is to prevent alcohol, tobacco and drug use, postpone sexual activity, and reduce fighting and bullying among adolescents.
When teachers implemented the program, there were significant reductions in the use of alcohol, cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, and inhalants. The program also had a significant effect in changing normative beliefs, lifestyle incongruence, commitment to school, impulsive decision-making, and sensation-seeking behavior.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Families
To increase utilization of asthma management plans and improve quality of life while reducing environmental triggers of asthma in the household and hospitalizations due to asthma among children.
Short-term community-based asthma outreach workers for children can be effective in enhancing self-management capabilities, improving the quality of life, increasing the use of asthma management plans, and helping families reduce asthma triggers at home.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children
The primary goal of this clinic is to make immunizations more available to parents in an area where children have been identified as lacking needed immunizations.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Investment & Personal Finance, Urban
ABP accounts were designed to offer a safe, convenient, and inexpensive alternative to check-cashing and other high-cost alternative financial services.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Disabilities, Children, Teens
The mission of this program is to stabilize students, help them earn their high school diploma, and prepare them for a future as productive workers.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use
The goal of Behavioral Couples Therapy for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse is to improve success rates for treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse by involving intimate partners in the treatment process.
Numerous studies of the program have shown positive outcomes in five areas: substance abuse, quality of relationship with partner, treatment compliance, intimate partner violence, and children's psychosocial functioning. BCT clients also reported more relationship satisfaction than non-participants.