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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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Project for Pride in Living (Minneapolis, MN)

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

Goal: PPL works with low-income individuals and families to achieve greater self-sufficiency through housing, employment training, support services, and education.

Saving Lives (Massachusetts)

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.

Senior Peer Counseling Program (Salem, OR)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The mentoring process is designed to help clients work through feelings and emotions, to recognize strengths and coping skills, and to redirect life toward greater meaning and purpose.

Step It Up: Taking Steps to Healthy Success (Kansas City)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children

Goal: Kansas’s Step It Up: Taking Steps to Healthy Success (Step It Up) Project aims to work towards making improvements to policies and practices in child care programs with regard to breastfeeding, child nutrition, physical activity, outdoor learning, and reductions in screen time. Step It Up is an extension of the National Early Care and Education Learning Collaboratives Project (ECELC) and uses a similar learning collaborative model.

Impact: Step It Up: Taking Steps to Healthy Success has made great improvements in promoting healthy eating and physical activity. The topics of Child Nutrition and Infant & Child Physical Activity had the highest number of increases in best practices. Breastfeeding & Infant Feeding had the highest percentage of best practices being met at pre-assessment (55%).

The Character Effect: A Universal Social-Emotional Learning Program for Elementary School Students (Greater Cincinnati Area (SW OH, Northern KY))

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education, Children, Urban

Goal: The goal of The Character Effect is to foster the development of students’ social-emotional skills, improving their behavior and readiness to learn in the classroom.

The Food Trust (USA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: The Food Trust's mission is to ensure that everyone have access to affordable, nutritious food by providing nutrition education and greater availability of affordable, healthy food.

Bay Cove Academy's Career Development Program (Brookline, MA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Disabilities, Children, Teens

Goal: 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.

BLAST Lyme Disease Prevention Program (Ridgefield, CT)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Goal: The goal of the program is to raise awareness of the most effective Lyme disease prevention practices, to educate the community about the early signs and symptoms of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, and to promote timely diagnosis and treatment.

Impact: The BLAST program has raised awareness of the most effective Lyme disease prevention practices through various outlets and has been recommended by the CDC.

Chatham-Savannah Youth Futures Authority (Savannah, GA)

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

Goal: The Chatham-Savannah Youth Futures Authority (YFA) mission is to create a community collaborative to bring about change in the policies, procedures and funding patterns of community institutions needed to enable the youth of the community to become productive, economically self-sustaining adults.

Chicago Community Loan Fund (Chicago, IL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes

Goal: CCLF's vision is to work creatively with their clients to help them rejuvenate neighborhoods and improve the lives of low-wealth individuals and families who live in those communities.

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.