Promising Practices

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children

Goal: The program’s goals are to provide early intervention and greater accountability for juveniles charged with weapons offenses, help juveniles recognize and use nonviolent means to promote their safety and preserve their self-esteem, and effectively deliver the message that gun violence hurts victims, families, and communities.

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

Goal: Keepin' it REAL aims to reduce adolescent alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco use.

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

Goal: The goal of the Lions Quest program is to promote healthy, safe, and drug-free behaviors in youth.

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Community & Business Resources, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: MOVE goals are to visually demonstrate health inequities and positive changes in Washington State, to highlight local Communities Putting Prevention to Work efforts to improve health, and to foster local partnerships.

Impact: The MOVE initiative is empowering community members to identify and raise awareness of the health inequities impacting them.

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana among adolescents.

Impact: Evaluations of the project showed that there was a smaller increase in students who intend to use cigarettes, alcohol, and tobacco within the upcoming months and that there were significant effects on the proportion of students reporting the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and tobacco.

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

Goal: The objective of the study was to characterize the population of older adults on waiting lists for home-delivered meals and compare their health and health-related needs to the population of older adults living in the community.

Impact: Between baseline and follow-up, respondents receiving daily-delivered meals were more likely to exhibit:
• Improvement in mental health (i.e., anxiety)
• Improvement in self-rated health
• Reductions in the rate of falls
• Improvement in feelings of isolation and loneliness
• Decreases in worry about being able to remain in home

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women

Goal: The program has three primary goals:
1) to improve pregnancy outcomes by promoting health-related behaviors;
2) to improve child health, development and safety by promoting competent care-giving; and
3) to enhance parent life-course development by promoting pregnancy planning, educational achievement, and employment.

The program also has two secondary goals: to enhance families’ material support by providing links with needed health and social services, and to promote supportive relationships among family and friends.

Impact: Evaluations of the program have shown that women who were visited by nurses had significantly better outcomes than those who did not in terms of measures such as maternal health, maternal life-course development, child health and safety, and adolescent measures of delinquency.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults

Goal: The goal of this nurse-led program is to improve secondary prevention among patients with coronary heart disease.

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

Goal: The goals of the program are to 1) assist mothers in obtaining treatment, maintaining recovery, and resolving the complex problems associated with their substance abuse, 2) guarantee that the children are in a safe environment and receiving appropriate health care, 3) effectively link families with community resources, and 4) demonstrate successful strategies for working with this population and thus reduce the numbers of future drug- and alcohol-affected children.

Impact: At a 36-month follow-up women in PCAP were more likely to have received alcohol/drug treatment than the control group. Cost savings were suggested by a reduction in length of out-of-home care and prevention of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of Pathways to Housing, Inc. is to provide independent housing, treatment services for physical and mental health, and employment to mentally ill individuals who are chronically homeless.

Impact: Pathways to Housing has received numerous awards for its projects in New York City, Philadelphia, and D.C. In addition to achieving large effects in terms of housing outcomes, compared with standard care in the community, Housing First also improves community functioning and quality of life.