Home > Promising Practices

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.

Submit a Promising Practice

Search Filters Clear all
(2142 results)

Save a link to this search

Ranking
Featured
Primary Target Audience
Topics and Subtopics
Geographic Type
Search

Early Risers 'Skills for Success' Program (Minneapolis, MN)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent behavior problems and substance abuse.

Itchy's Alphabet (Canada and USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Literacy, Children

Goal: The goal of Itchy's Alphabet is to help children improve their literacy levels.

Reducing Environmental Triggers of Asthma (Minnesota)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Reducing Environmental Triggers of Asthma intervention is to improve asthma control by removing environmental allergens and irritants from the home.

Runaway Intervention Program (RIP) (St. Paul, Minnesota)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Runaway Intervention Program is to prevent or reduce risky behaviors of young runaway girls that have been sexually abused or exploited in order to return participants to a healthy developmental trajectory.

Impact: This program is a promising intervention for restoring sexually abused runaway girls to a healthy developmental trajectory, with particular benefit to those who are at the highest risk.

The Duluth, Minnesota, Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP) Advocacy Response (Duluth, MN)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Domestic Violence & Abuse, Families

Goal: The mission of DAIP is to provide advocacy on behalf of battered women. DAIP staff provide information and assess the women's safety regardless of the situation, but they also offer advocacy at three key time periods: immediately after police intervention and arrest, throughout the court proceedings, and after case disposition. The advocates offer support and information about available community resources, explain the criminal court process, describe the civil court remedies available, and obtain information from the women in order to serve as their liaisons to the legal system and to ascertain the level of danger that each woman is in.

All Children Excel (ACE) (Ramsey County, MN)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent delinquency, substance abuse, and school dropout in high risk children.

Beats and Rhymes (Minneapolis, MN)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Teens, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The mission of Beats & Rhymes is to provide schools and community centers with the knowledge and resources they need to implement their own successful program, and subsequent music group.

Impact: Beats & Rhymes teaches youth music-making skills through implementation in various Minneapolis after-school programs.

Communities Caring for Children (Minnesota)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children, Rural

Goal: The goal of Communities Caring for Children is to increase the number of infants and children who receive immunizations on schedule.

EMERGE (Minneapolis, MN)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Employment, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: Invest in people through social enterprise.

JumpStart (Wisconsin)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Transportation, Families

Goal: The goal of this program is to assist low-income households in obtaining a personal vehicle.

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.