Promising Practices

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Literacy

Goal: ALMA’s mission is to help adults gain basic reading, writing, and math skills they need to achieve their educational, career, and personal goals.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children

Goal: The goal of the Al's Pals program is to teach children how to practice positive ways to express feelings, relate to others, communicate, brainstorm ideas, solve problems, and differentiate between safe and unsafe substances and situations.

Impact: Studies have shown that the program resulted in higher degrees of positive change in the intervention groups, increases in prosocial behaviors and positive coping behaviors, and decreases in antisocial and negative coping behaviors.

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce alcohol misuse among adolescents.

Impact: Middle school students who receive the curriculum have increased knowledge about alcohol misuse when compared to a control group. Students who received programming in the 10th grade had significantly increased alcohol misuse prevention knowledge, decreased alcohol misuse, and increased refusal skills. During their first year of driving, students who received the curriculum were involved in fewer serious traffic or drug offenses than students in the control group.

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to make affordable health care a reality for hundreds of thousands of families across the state.

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Weather & Climate

Goal: The program aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address global warming on college campuses.

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Civic Engagement, Children, Urban

Goal: The overall goals of Kid2Kid are to: enable children to become responsible, caring world citizens by assisting them to develop compassion and empathy for other children around the world; increase students' global awareness and cultural understanding, while strengthening social studies and geography content knowledge; provide support, acknowledgement, encouragement and hope for traumatized children worldwide; encourage peace in the world, promote non-violence, and initiate pro-social behavior, among all children worldwide; facilitate an on-line culture learning process, whereby participating Kid2Kid children will learn about themselves and others around the world on a deep, meaningful level; and encourage and improve Kid2Kid children's artistic and communicative skills as well as provide an outlet for emotional expression.

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

Goal: The goal of the Arthritis Foundation Exercise Program is to increase joint flexibility, range of motion, and muscle strength among individuals with arthritis.

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

Goal: ASSIST aims to develop a diverse group consisting of young people that will then influence their peers to defy the idea of smoking thus reducing the number of adolescent smokers and reducing its health effects.

Impact: A peer-led intervention reduced smoking among adolescents at a modest cost: the ASSIST program cost of £32 ($42 USD) (95% CI = £29.70–£33.80) per student. The incremental cost per student not smoking at 2 years was £1,500 ($1984 USD) (95% CI = £669–£9,947).

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.

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

Goal: The mission of the ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise & Nutrition Alternatives) program is to promote healthy sports nutrition and discourage the use of body-enhancing substances among middle and high school female athletes.

Impact: Participation in the ATHENA program results in significant reductions in the use of performance-enhancing substances, recreational drugs, diet pills, tobacco, and alcohol among female teen athletes. Healthier eating and other health behaviors, and body image perceptions were also improved.