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, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens, Families
Goal: The Raising Healthy Children program is a social development approach to positive youth development.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Reach for health Community Youth Service program is to reduce risky sexual behaviors among urban Latino and African American youth.
Impact: Long-term impact has been recorded among participants after two years: this includes delayed initiation of intercourse and reduced frequency of intercourse among sexually active adolescents.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Adults, Families, Urban
Goal: Reach Out and Read prepares America's youngest children to succeed in school by partnering with doctors to encourage families
to read together.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: This program aims to promote delay of sexual intercourse, condom use among those who were sexually active, and communication on sexuality between fathers (or father figures) and sons.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / School Environment, Urban
Goal: The program’s goal is to make New York City public schools safe and supportive for all students and to have staff members who could support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goals of the program are: 1) to promote abstinence maintenance among sexually abstinent students and encourage safer sex practices to sexually active students, 2) compare the effect of RAPP when taught by different providers, and 3) to explore the factors that impact a student's decision to engage in sexual activity.
Impact: Regular teacher-taught male (p=.001) and female students (p=.05) and peer-taught male students (p=.02) had the highest rates of delaying the onset of sexual activity.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Community & Business Resources, Women, Men, Families, Rural
Goal: The goal of the renovation of the Rock Island Railroad Depot was to revitalize the city of Liberal, Kansas.
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.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Teens, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: To combat the epidemic of violence among Baltimore’s youth and support traditional public safety strategies using a combination of public health and human service models to reduce violence.
Impact: It was estimated that the program was associated with 5.4 fewer homicide incidents and 34.6 fewer nonfatal shooting incidents during 112 cumulative months of intervention post observations.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Women, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Safer Sex project is to increase condom use, prevent recurrent STDs, and eliminate or reduce risky sexual behaviors among adolescent females that have been diagnosed with an STD.
Impact: The Safer Sex project shows that individualized safer sex interventions may improve condom use and decrease the number of partners among adolescent girls who have had an STD.