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 Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of cooperative learning is to establish positive interdependence among students. When positive interdependence is established in group learning situations, the quality of peer interaction improves. Instead of competing with or ignoring one another, students are more likely to promote the success of one another through mutual assistance, emotional support, and the sharing of ideas or resources. These positive social interactions, in turn, encourage greater social acceptance and the development of positive relationships among students and, in educational contexts, promote greater academic motivation and achievement (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005). In fact, research on social interaction suggests that gains in social skills alone are insufficient to reduce social problems among students and encourage more positive peer relations. Only positive interdependence, and the subsequent positive social interactions that arise from it, can motivate youth to re-evaluate previous conclusions regarding the social desirability of others (Bierman, 2004).
Impact: Cooperative learning can have positive effects on adolescent bullying, alcohol use, and tobacco use.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Families
Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce aggressive behavior and delinquency in children by applying the contextual sociocognitive model.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Prevention & Safety, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of the CDP was to improve health care access for incarcerated individuals and at-risk minority populations disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: The goals of this promising practice were to identify the transportation-disadvantaged population that lacks nonemergency medical care because of low access to transportation; determine the medical conditions that this population experiences and describe other characteristics of these individuals, including geography; estimate the cost of providing the transportation necessary for this population to obtain medical transportation according to various transportation service needs and trip modes; estimate the healthcare costs and benefits that would result if these individuals obtained transportation to non-emergency medical care for key healthcare conditions prevalent for this population; and compare the relative costs (from transportation and routine healthcare) and benefits (such as improved quality of life and better managed care, leading to less emergency care) to determine the cost-effectiveness of providing transportation for selected conditions.
Impact: These results show that adding relatively small transportation costs do not make a disease-specific, otherwise cost-effective environment non-cost-effective. Providing increased access to non-emergency medical care does improve quality of life and saves money per patient.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce drug and alcohol use among teenagers.
Impact: Evaluations found significant increases in knowledge and healthy beliefs about alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse by parents. Youth in the program significantly increased their use of community services and delayed onset of ATOD use. Families participating in the program significantly increased youth involvement in setting and following family ATOD rules.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders
Goal: The goal of the Critical Time Intervention is to prevent homelessness among people with severe mental illness.
Impact: Evaluations of this program have found sizable reductions (24-67%) in average number of nights spent homeless over the 18-month follow-up period and more than a 60% reduction in likelihood of being homeless in the final weeks of the 18-month follow-up. Cost offsets and savings have been shown.
Filed under Good Idea, Education / Literacy, Teens, Families, Rural
Goal: Since late 1996 the Silver Valley Learning Center has been helping students with low reading levels improve literacy and achieve personal educational goals. By offering these services, the Silver Valley Learning Center hopes to enhance self-esteem and motivation for the adults in its community, which can hedge against depression and related problems such as alcohol abuse and domestic violence.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Poverty, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: As a leader in Kansas City's emergency food network, ECS is committed to providing access to healthy food for the community's food-insecure households. Its mission is to engage the Episcopal and broader communities in feeding the hungry and empowering the poor to move beyond the barriers of poverty with dignity - in short, feeding the hungry & changing lives. ECS is best known for the Kansas City Community Kitchen (KCCK) in the heart of the urban food desert. ECS also works to provide meaningful training experience through the Culinary Cornerstones Training Program, a 30-week immersive program preparing individuals for careers in the culinary world.
Impact: Since implementing the new service model, there has been a 10% average increase in the number of daily meals served at the Kansas City Community Kitchen. There has also been a large increase of volunteers, with an increasing number of recurring volunteers.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Urban
Goal: The mission of DotWell is to guarantee high-quality clinical and community services across both sites—addressing health disparities, meeting the complex needs of a changing Dorchester community, and building social capital in and across neighborhoods.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The primary aim of Draw the Line/Respect the Line is to reduce the number of students who initiate or have sexual intercourse and to increase condom use among those students who do have sexual intercourse.