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.

Submit a Promising Practice

Let's Talk…It Makes a Difference! (Cambridge, MA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Families

Goal: The objectives of the campaign are (1) to educate parents about the importance of talking with their children and (2) to model techniques parents can use to have rich and elaborate conversations with their children.

Long-term Cost Effectiveness of Placing Homeless Seniors in Permanent Supportive Housing (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Women, Men, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: To describe a new model of enriched supportive housing that not only improves the quality of life of seniors but also can provide a return on investment that reduces health care expenditures.

Impact: Housing chronically homeless adults reduces homelessness, improves health outcomes, and reduces health care costs. The greatest reduction in health care costs after placement in supportive housing is seen among chronically homeless adults and seniors.

McREL Balanced Leadership - School Leadership Review Protocol

Filed under Good Idea, Education

Goal: McREL is a nonprofit, nonpartisan education research, development, and service organization that helps schools, districts, and education agencies improve outcomes for all students. We help school and system clients in all kinds of communities analyze their performance, identify the root causes of challenges, build their staff capacities, and find the under-used bright spots they can scale up to make an even bigger difference for every student.

Mental Health First Aid Training Program (DuPage County, IL)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goals of the Mental Health First Aid course are to: 1) learn to identify risk factors and warning signs for mental health and addiction concerns, 2) utilize evidence-based strategies to help someone in both crisis and non-crisis situations, and 3) become a resource in your community to guide people where to turn for help.

NAMI-DuPage's yearly goal is to complete 70 training courses per year.

Impact: Mental Health First Aid helps community members become aware of signs and symptoms of someone in a mental health crisis and become a resource to mental health and behavioral health programs in their community.

Methodist Germantown Diabetes-Self Management Education & Support (DSMES) Service (Shelby County, TN)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Diabetes, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The organization goal for the DSMES Service is to help each person living with diabetes attain knowledge and/or skills that may enable and empower them to perform effective self-care, promote wellness and prevent sickness and complications

Milwaukee Tobacco-Free Sports Program (Milwaukee, WI)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children

Goal: Program objectives are to:

- Plan and conduct five sets of interactive tobacco prevention mini-sessions for youth and parents in multiple school-linked settings;
- Plan and implement one annual media advocacy event coordinated with the national Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
- Plan and conduct tobacco educational outreach and implementation guidance for coaches and athletic staff. Teen Presenters deliver tobacco prevention mini-sessions to younger children, grades 1-6.

Montgomery Youth Work's Partnership for All Youth (Wheaton, MD)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment, Children

Goal: MYW's mission is to provide all youth with meaningful training and job opportunities aimed at facilitating a successful transition from school to work and to contribute to workforce development in Montgomery County.

The purpose of the Montgomery Partnership for All Youth is to expand the skills of workforce development professionals on how to assist youth with disabilities in taking advantage of youth workforce initiatives.

Need for Control: Downshift (Sonoma )

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Prevention & Safety, Teens

Goal: To prevent death and injury from car crashes among teens by reducing driving speed and driver distractions.

Network Therapy (New York, NY)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to effectively treat substance abuse by using the patient's social support network to support abstinence.

Impact: Among Network Therapy clients, 64.5% of all samples submitted were negative for opioids, compared with 45.3% of all samples submitted by medication maintenance clients. Furthermore, 88% of urine samples were negative for cocaine for Network Therapy participants, compared with 66% of urine samples collected from treatment-as-usual clients.

Non-Emergency Medical Transportation: Findings from a Return on Investment Study

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

Goal: The goal of this study is to examine NEMT’s return on investment and expand research on its financial benefit.

Impact: The findings suggest that NEMT more than pays for itself as part of a care management strategy for people with chronic diseases, resulting in a total positive return on investment of over $40 million per month ($480 million annually) per 30,000 Medicaid beneficiaries.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

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.
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:

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

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.
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.
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.