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 / Adolescent Health, Teens
Goal: The long-term goals of the program are to arrest the development of teen antisocial behaviors and drug experimentation. Intermediate goals are to improve parents' family management and communication skills.
Impact: Parents had improved feelings toward their children and were less likely to react negatively to their children's behavior and less likely to take a "lax" approach to their children after participating in the program. They also showed improvements in the skill areas of tracking and reinforcing behavior, setting expectations and defining problems, and remaining calm in stressful situations. Antisocial behaviors in their children decreased significantly, measures of child adjustment showed improvement, and total problem behavior decreased. Furthermore, the PFS intervention resulted in significantly less use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana.
Filed under Good Idea, Education / Educational Attainment
Goal: The goal of the Posse Foundation is to provide top institutions with a selection of exemplary students from diverse backgrounds that they can recruit, improve the college environment for students of all backgrounds, and help Posse Scholars graduate and find leadership positions in the workforce.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The goal of the PEARLS program is to provide home-based counseling in order to manage and treat depression among older adults.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: To reduce HIV risk behaviors among adolescents aged 11 to 14.
Impact: This program effectively modified sexual risk among adolescents aged 11 to 14 by focusing students on positive future selves.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The main goals of the program are to prevent adolescent non-users from experimenting with drugs and to prevent youths who are already experimenting from becoming more regular users.
Impact: Project Alert participants were 30% less likely than other students to begin using marijuana and analyses showed that the program significantly dampened pro-drug beliefs about cigarette and marijuana use.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of the program is to prevent school dropout by providing services addressing students' academic, social, emotional, and occupational needs.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce or stop smoking among adolescents.
Impact: At 3-month follow-up, 17% of youths in the treatment conditions reported having quit smoking for at least 30 days, compared with only 8% of those teens in the control condition. These positive effects were also demonstrated when moved from a clinic setting to the classroom, as students in the program condition experienced a greater reduction in weekly smoking and monthly smoking, at 6-and-12-month follow-ups.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Air, Children, Teens
Goal: PGF is working to complete the retrofit of all 4,000 eligible school buses in the state. PGF also aims to reduce Minnesota's ambient air pollution, and help Minnesota avoid being declared a non-attainment area under the federal Clean Air Act.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The program’s goal is to delay the age when young people begin drinking and to reduce drinking among those who have already started.
Impact: Studies have shown that by the end of the intervention, participating students were significantly less likely to drink alcohol than nonparticipants. Also, students who did not use alcohol before participating in the program were less likely to use alcohol after the intervention than similar youth who did not participate.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The goal of Project SUCCESS is to prevent and reduce substance abuse in high-risk middle-school and high-school aged adolescents.