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.

Submit a Promising Practice

Substance Use Disorder Assessment and Resource Navigation (Austin, TX)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Adults, Urban

Goal: To engage patients who may benefit from early intervention and/or education about substance use disorders, and to direct the individuals toward treatment options at the most appropriate levels of care.

A Matter of Degree (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens

Goal: The goal of the A Matter of Degree program is to reduce student drinking and driving after drinking.

A Population Health Approach to Clinical Social Work with Complex Patients in Primary Care (Portland, Maine)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Other Conditions

Goal: Patients with the highest medical and social vulnerability require a population-specific social work intervention in primary care to achieve positive medical outcomes and to decrease inefficient use of services, especially inpatient admissions and ED visits.

Impact: The study exhibits promise in decreasing inpatient visits and cost. The evidence also supports population-specific social work interventions integrated in primary care.

Achievement Mentoring (Piscataway, NJ)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve academic performance, reduce substance abuse, and reduce school failure among middle and high school students.

Assisting in Rehabilitating Kids (ARK) (Mississippi)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens

Goal: The goal of Assisting in Rehabilitating Kids (ARK) is to increase abstinence and safer sex behaviors among substance-dependent adolescents.

Impact: The ARK program successfully increased sexual abstinence among those who received all components: health information, behavior skills training, and risk-sensitization manipulation, with the inclusion of the latter being more resistant to decay over time.

Be a Star (St Louis, MO)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children

Goal: The Be a Star program was developed to help preadolescents gain the knowledge and skills necessary to resist drugs.

Impact: During the third year of the evaluation, very strong differences emerged between intervention and control groups. The treatment groups scored significantly higher on the scales rating family bonding, pro-social behavior, self-concept, self-control, decision-making, emotional awareness, assertiveness, cooperation, attitudes toward drugs and alcohol, self-efficacy, attitudes toward African-American culture, and school bonding.

Becoming a Responsible Teen (BART) (Jackson, Mississippi)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Family Planning, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goals of this intervention include: increasing information and skills to make sound choices, increasing abstinence, and eliminating or reducing sex risk behaviors.

Impact: Among teens who participated, there was a decrease in sexual activity compared to those who did not participate in the program. Also among participants, there was an increase in sexual intercourse occasions that were condom-protected.

Better Choices, Better Health (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Other Conditions, Adults, Older Adults

Goal: Better Choices, Better Health^TM gives people with chronic conditions the skills to coordinate all the things needed to manage their heath, as well as to help them keep active in their lives.

Boys and Girls Club Project Learn

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve the educational performance of economically disadvantaged adolescents.

Impact: After 30 months, program youths reported significantly greater enjoyment and engagement in reading, verbal skills, writing, and tutoring. They also had better overall averages in reading, spelling, history, science, social studies, and school attendance compared with comparison and control youths.

Brief Strategic Family Therapy (Miami, FL)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Teens, Families

Goal: The goal of BSFT is to improve a youth's behavior problems by improving family interactions that are presumed to be directly related to the child's symptoms, thus reducing risk factors and strengthening protective factors for adolescent drug abuse and other conduct problems.

Impact: Adolescents who participated in BSFT showed a significantly greater reduction in conduct problems than adolescents in the comparison condition, who received a participatory-learning group intervention. BSFT participants also showed a significantly greater reduction in socialized aggression.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

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.
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:

The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
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:

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.
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.
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.