Promising Practices

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment

Goal: The goal of this program is to promote positive family relationships, help incarcerated fathers learn skills to be active and involved fathers, encourage incarcerated fathers to
provide financial support for their children, facilitate programs for offender families through community partnerships, and provide constructive opportunities for children to participate in special activities with their incarcerated father.

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: New York City LegalHealth is a fruitful partnership that operates in 11 clinics of the city's public hospitals. One example is by supporting individuals in tenant-landlord disputes.

Impact: With an average of $225 per case, LegalHealth was able to effectively demand fixes in asthma patients' living conditions. This impact directly resulted in a 90% drop in emergency room visits and hospital admissions for this asthma patient group.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goals of the Mental Health First Aid course are to: 1) learn to identify risk factors and warning signs for mental health and addiction concerns, 2) utilize evidence-based strategies to help someone in both crisis and non-crisis situations, and 3) become a resource in your community to guide people where to turn for help.

NAMI-DuPage's yearly goal is to complete 70 training courses per year.

Impact: Mental Health First Aid helps community members become aware of signs and symptoms of someone in a mental health crisis and become a resource to mental health and behavioral health programs in their community.

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Families

Goal: The goal of Mercy Housing is to create and strengthen Healthy Communities Across America.

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

Goal: The goals of this program are to establish a single application for school-based youth prevention programs; provide a common language and approach for parent, community, and student health programs; and reinforce prevention messages from a variety of sources.

Impact: Students who received the Michigan Model curriculum had significantly better health outcomes in several areas: social and emotional health, interpersonal skills, aggressive behavior, safety attitudes and skills, physical activity skills, nutrition behavior, drug refusal skills, recent alcohol and tobacco use, and intentions to use alcohol and smoke cigarettes.

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Cancer

Goal: The goal of this project is to educate citizens, health professionals, researchers, and policy makers about cancer in Missouri. Complete, timely, and high-quality data are essential for conducting research and responding to public concerns about cancer incidence in their communities.

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Oral Health, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of Missouri’s Community Water Fluoridation Program is to prevent dental caries and to reduce the associated health costs.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Men, Urban

Goal: The goals of Mpowerment are to mobilize young gay and bisexual men to reduce sexual risk taking, encourage regular HIV testing, and build positive social connections with peers.

Impact: The Mpowerment intervention successfully developed a mechanism to socialize young gay men to safer sex. Since this intervention relies primarily on volunteers, it is relatively inexpensive for communities to maintain and can continue to be made available for future generations.

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Food Safety, Children, Teens

Goal: The goal of the National Coalition for Food-Safe Schools is to reduce foodborne illness in the U.S. by improving food safety in schools.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use

Goal: The goal of this program is to effectively treat substance abuse by using the patient's social support network to support abstinence.

Impact: Among Network Therapy clients, 64.5% of all samples submitted were negative for opioids, compared with 45.3% of all samples submitted by medication maintenance clients. Furthermore, 88% of urine samples were negative for cocaine for Network Therapy participants, compared with 66% of urine samples collected from treatment-as-usual clients.