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, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Urban
Goal: To promote water consumption with an educational and environmental intervention in elementary schools of deprived urban areas to prevent overweight.
Impact: This program shows that environmental and educational, school-based interventions can have effective impact in the prevention of overweight among children in elementary school, even in a population from socially-deprived areas.
Filed under Good Idea, Art & Recreation / Music, Children
Goal: The program aims to provide an outlet for inpatient pediatric cancer patients to express their emotions through composing and performing music.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Urban
Goal: 1. To produce positive outcomes for children.
2. To provide consumer education to help parents recognize, expect and seek out quality in a childcare setting and to articulate the standards for quality to childcare providers and parents.
3. To define, advocate for and obtain the resources necessary to encourage, support and promote quality early care and education.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Teens
Goal: The program's main goal is to improve academic deficiencies. A secondary emphasis is to establish meaningful, long-term relationships between the participants and program Coordinators. Finally, the program encourages involvement and commitment to school and community.
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 / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Teens
Goal: The goal of ReachOut Central (ROC) is to improve mental health among young people through an online gaming service by teaching them the practical coping skills for dealing with major stressors in life, ranging from issues such as alcohol use to psychological distress.
Impact: The aggregate results of this statistical analysis point to ReachOut Central's potential to impact and improve certain factors, such as coping ability, but also to relatively unexplored gender-dependent outcomes for other factors like alcohol consumption.
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, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Adults, Women, Men, Urban
Goal: The mission of Reconciliation Services is to cultivate a community seeking reconciliation to transform Troost from a dividing line into a gathering place, revealing the strength of all. Our mental health services are at the heart of how we strive to help clients see their own strength and work towards being reconciled to their own health and well-being.
Impact: Over the past three years, our therapy program participants reported a 71 percent decrease for depression and 79 percent decrease for PTSD.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Adults, Families
Goal: The Red Rock Ridge & Valley Trail System will be a complete network of bike lanes, sidewalks, and trails connecting communities across Jefferson County.
Impact: The master plan for over 200 miles of shared-use greenways and trails and over 600 miles of street-based bicycle and pedestrian pathways will improve alternative transportation and recreational opportunities.
Reducing Health Disparities: Diversity and Cultural and Linguistic Competence in Contra Costa (Contra Costa County, CA)
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to eliminate health disparities among the diverse patient population in Contra Costa County by improving access to services for people who are not comfortable speaking English, and by increasing the cultural and linguistic competence of staff in order to have a workforce capable of working effectively with diverse patients, clients, customers and communities.