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, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens, Families
Goal: The Raising Healthy Children program is a social development approach to positive youth development.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Adults, Families
Goal: The mission of Reach Out and Read is to help prepare young children to succeed in school, by partnering with physicians to encouraging parents and children to read aloud together.
Impact: Reach Out and Read improves children's language development by 3-6 months and improves language ability with increased exposure to the program.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Teens
Goal: The goal of ReachOut Central (ROC) is to improve mental health among young people through an online gaming service by teaching them the practical coping skills for dealing with major stressors in life, ranging from issues such as alcohol use to psychological distress.
Impact: The aggregate results of this statistical analysis point to ReachOut Central's potential to impact and improve certain factors, such as coping ability, but also to relatively unexplored gender-dependent outcomes for other factors like alcohol consumption.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Civic Engagement, Children, Urban
Goal: The primary goal of RCCP is to increase children's levels of knowledge regarding ways in which to approach conflict situations, to develop children's conflict resolution skills, and to promote children's positive interpersonal and intergroup relations. In addition, RCCP attempts to combat prejudice and stereotypes, and the various types of conflict and violence that may arise as a result of these issues, by teaching children how to recognize and oppose prejudice and by increasing their respect for and understanding of diversity. Finally, RCCP aims to transform the overall school culture into one that exemplifies nonviolent conflict resolution and a respect for and openness to diversity.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of Romp & Chomp is to increase healthy eating and physical activity in order to reduce overweight and obesity in children less than 5 years of age.
Impact: The Romp & Chomp program was a multistrategy and multisetting community based intervention designed to reduce childhood obesity by encouraging healthy eating and active play. The program results have shown that Romp & Chomp, working alongside other health promotion programs, was successful in reducing the prevalence of childhood obesity.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Built Environment
Goal: Safe Routes to School programs aim to make it safer for students to walk and bike to school and encourage more walking and biking where safety is not a barrier.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety
Goal: The goal of this program was to improve transportation safety in Massachusetts.
Impact: The Saving Lives Program successfully reduced drunk driving by 42% and speeding-related crashes by 25% through community-based, innovative, and cost-effective interventions.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Teens
Goal: The goals of Say It Straight (SIS) training are prevention of risky or destructive behaviors, such as alcohol, tobacco, other drug (ATOD) use, violence, school drop-out, teen pregnancy, behaviors leading to HIV/AIDS; and promotion of wellness, personal and social responsibility, positive self-esteem and positive relationships.
Impact: SIS training results in statistically significant reductions in alcohol/drug related school suspensions. Juvenile criminal police offenses such as assaults, vandalism, burglary, etc. were also lower among trained students.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: Both local and state governments face huge challenges in providing senior populations access to public, agency, professional and family caregivers, and community services that allow seniors to remain independent. The complex maze of constantly changing program and service eligibility rules challenge even the most knowledgeable senior service providers. Fragmentation within senior service agencies further results in duplication of services, unnecessary waiting lists, and caregiver and volunteer burnout. This resource attempts to address those problems by providing quick and easy access to a variety of programs.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: Shape Up SF aims to reduce health disparities by creating healthy eating and active living environments and improving physical activity and nutrition.
Impact: Shape Up SF implemented Safe Routes to School, Bayview HEAL Zone, PE4SF, Rethink Your Drink, Southeast Food Access (SEFA) Working Group, SEFA Food Guardians, and Walking Challenge, and increased physical activity and access to healthy foods in San Francisco.