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, Health / Children's Health, Children
Goal: The goal of this study was to reduce pediatric asthma-related symptoms by installing central heating in homes.
Impact: Central heating successfully improves home heating, dampness, and energy efficiency. Through home modifications, asthma-related symptoms (nocturnal cough and days lost from school) can be reduced among children.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children
Goal: The goals of DTBY are to improve parents' self-esteem, enhance decision-making skills, increase communication between parents and children, teach effective stress management, and strengthen peer support.
Impact: Several studies have demonstrated increases in parental self-efficacy and self-esteem among DTBY parents. Also, the use of harsh punishment decreased and effective discipline and limit-setting increased. Children involved in DTBY programming had greater average increases in developmental level.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Children, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of the Diabetes-Based Science Education for Tribal Schools (DETS) curriculum is to slow or reverse the rising rate of type 2 diabetes in American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) youth through a pedagogy based in a combination of a science-based diabetes/health education curriculum and culturally relevant contexts.
Impact: Overall, the DETS curriculum shows that collaboratively-developed curriculums and education courses can have an effective impact across grade levels with students having significant knowledge gains, and can also serve as a supplement for other science and social science curriculums in schools.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families
Goal: The goal of this program is to help preschool children learn emotional self-regulation and facilitate their psychosocial development.
Impact: The Early HeartSmarts program was effective in increasing children’s social/emotional, physical, cognitive and language development in a classroom setting.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Rural
Goal: The goal of ELSB is to help moderately to severely disabled children develop the skills and behaviors they need to succeed in a standard reading program.
Impact: ELSB demonstrates that reading skills curriculum adapted to alternative instructional needs of cognitively disabled children can more effectively improve literacy as compared to sight-word-only programs.
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.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: To create a culturally appropriate healthy lifestyle educational program for Latino adolescents at highest risk for Type 2 Diabetes.
Impact: The promising findings of this program suggest that a community-based diabetes prevention program for obese Latino youth is a feasible strategy for improving health in this high-risk population.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Urban
Goal: The EDM program integrates asthma education into elementary school core curriculum with the intentions of raising asthma awareness and increasing asthma management knowledge.
Impact: The EDM program provides students the opportunity to increase knowledge and develop health literacy about asthma as well as expand the availability of resources for teachers.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Adults
Goal: The overall goal of the FAST program is to intervene early to help at-risk youth succeed in the community, at home, and in school and thus avoid problems such as adolescent delinquency, violence, addiction, and dropping out of school.
Impact: FAST has generally improved aggressive behaviors and increased positive behaviors amongst participants as reported by teachers and parents.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Teens
Goal: The main goals of this program are to increase communication and bonds between and among the three domains of school, home, and the individual; to enhance children's social, cognitive, and problem-solving skills; to improve peer relationships; and ultimately to decrease disruptive behavior at home and in school.