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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.

Please note: Separate your search terms with spaces, and use quotes to search for specific text (example: "mental health"). 

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Project Angel Heart (Colorado)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity

Goal: Project Angel Heart improves health and well-being for people with life-threatening illnesses by preparing and delivering medically tailored meals and promoting the power of food as medicine.

Impact: Survey data from Project Angel Heart clients show that this program has a positive impact on clients. Of clients surveyed in 2018: 82% report less stress, 69% report improved adherence to health care plans, 72% report improved quality of life, and 72% report improved ability to afford basic needs.

Rural medical-legal partnership and advocacy: a three-year follow-up study. (southern Illinois)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy, Rural

Goal: Medical-legal partnerships perform advocacy services for vulnerable and under-served populations. These populations are typically burdened disproportionately by legal and medical problems. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness and sustainability of a rural medical-legal partnership (MLP).

Impact: The rural medical-legal partnership continued to show social and financial impacts, such as health care recovery dollars (319% return on investment between 2007 and 2009), Social Security benefits, family law services, and end-of-life guidance.

The Living Room of the Community Health Center of LaGrange (LaGrange, IL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Urban

Goal: To reduce the number of individuals with mental illness who use the ER, to help individuals achieve long-term recovery, and to develop a community peer-based support network.

Impact: The Living Room is a comfortable, non-clinical space that offers an alternative to hospital emergency rooms. The program in LaGrange, Illinois hopes to decrease unnecessary hospitalizations.

The Senior Companion Program (Savannah, GA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The primary caregivers of terminally ill patients often have regular jobs, require additional assistance, or just need some respite from their demanding schedule. Senior Companions provide much-needed assistance that allows patients to remain at home while giving primary caregivers a break.

Triple P - Positive Parenting Program (South Carolina)

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

Goal: Triple P aims to prevent maltreatment and behavioral, emotional and developmental problems in children by strenghtening the knowledge, skills and confidence of parents.

Impact: The program found a 25-35% reduction in child maltreatment, child maltreatment related hospitalizations and injuries, and foster home placements of children for young children at two-year followup of the program.

A Reason to Survive (ARTS) (San Diego, California)

Filed under Good Idea, Art & Recreation / Art, Children, Teens, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: ARTS is dedicated to healing, inspiring and empowering children facing life challenges by providing innovative arts-based programs, education and opportunities.

Access to Care (Cook County)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Urban

Goal: Access to Care aims to meet primary health care needs of low-income uninsured individuals.

All Children Excel (ACE) (Ramsey County, MN)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent delinquency, substance abuse, and school dropout in high risk children.

Avian Flu Outbreak and Vaccination Drill (Yolo County, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Goal: The purpose of the exercise was to train health and emergency medical personnel in planning for and responding to large scale disease outbreaks. The most proven method to assure an effective response to a real event is to practice a well-coordinated multi-agency field exercise.

Best Start for Families: A Health Equity Approach (Illinois)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Adults, Women, Men, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: To partner within communities and organizations to train professionals, community and parent leaders so the “Best Start” program can reach and support all families, but especially marginalized or struggling families and communities; to build the strong family/home, school and community environments that are necessary to support positive mental health, confidence, resilience and hope to achieve health equity, academic and economic opportunities for positive futures for all.

The Changing Children’s Worlds Foundation (CCWF) mission is for every child and adolescent to be supported in positive development by caregivers and professionals within loving, non-violent families and peaceful communities. Through parent groups and educational workshops we strive to promote a sense of community and foster empathy.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. 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.
  2. 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:

  1. The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
  2. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.