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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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Providing Educational Enrichment for Students Expelled from Traditional School Settings (Indianapolis, IN)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

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

Goal: The goal of the Opportunity School is to provide educational enrichment for middle school (6th - 8th grades) students who have been expelled from standard school settings.

Providing Reliable Used Cars to Low-Income Families (New Hampshire)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Poverty, Families

Goal: The mission of Wheels to Work (W2) is to promote self-reliance and the development of a productive workforce in New Hampshire by providing low-income workers who lack reliable transportation with dependable cars at affordable terms.

Seat Belt Enforcement Zones (Marion County, IN)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Transportation, Families

Goal: Indiana has a primary seat belt law which enables law enforcement officers to issue citations when they are observed. However, the Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that officers may not indiscriminately stop motorists to see if they are wearing their seat belts. To increase safety belt usage compliance, members of the Traffic Safety Partnership developed Seat Belt Enforcement Zones. The primary objectives of these enforcement zones are to: combine public awareness initiatives and enforcement efforts; utilize multi-agency personnel from participating law enforcement agencies; operate on a zero tolerance policy for violations; inform residents about current seat belt usage rates using metal signs posted at various county locations.

Shoulder to Shoulder (Twin Cities, MN)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Adolescent Health, Families

Goal: The goal of Shoulder to Shoulder is to reach parents of teens with good advice about parenting their adolescents and help parents adopt strategies that are proven to reduce risky behaviors.

Teaching Stream Restoration to Alternative Middle School Students (Everett, WA)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Wildlife, Children, Teens

Goal: The goal of the Voyager School was to supplement the current science curriculum with some outdoor activities and environmental education.

Teen Videofest (Tarrant County, TX)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens

Goal: The goal of this project is to give teenagers a meaningful and valuable way to help other teens improve their health and well-being through the positive messages they incorporate in their videos.

TeleKidcare® (Kansas)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Families, Rural

Goal: The main goal of this project is to reduce the time that a child spends out of the classroom recuperating from an acute illness. This goal is based on the fact that TeleKidcare® transforms the school health room from a triage center to a site of care. TeleKidcare® also addresses the shared community goal of keeping children healthy and in school learning by providing health care service to children at school.

The F.U.N. Initiative (Garfield, NJ)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Education / School Environment

Goal: The overall mission of this initiative is to develop an active, healthy community. Goals of this initiative include increasing the number of children walking or biking to school, and developing opportunities for Garfield's children and families to be more physically active and eat more healthily.

The Isles Career Center (Trenton, NJ)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment, Teens, Urban

Goal: Isles, Inc., is a nationally recognized nonprofit community development and environmental organization with the mission to foster more self-reliant families in healthy, sustainable communities.

The Magnolia Project (Jacksonville, Duval County)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Family Planning, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The Magnolia Project's mission is to improve the health and well-being of women during their childbearing years by empowering communities to address medical, behavioral, cultural and social service needs.

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.

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