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 Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Older Adults
Goal: Meals on Wheels has been guided by a single goal since the first known U.S. delivery by a small group of Philadelphia citizens in 1954 – to support our senior neighbors to extend their independence and health as they age.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goals of the program are to improve the health of recent immigrant families by training native speakers from different countries to help enroll members of their communities in various publicly funded health programs.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Families
Goal: NEXUS intends to provide the collaboration & communication needed for consumers to recover from alcohol and other drug abuse issues in a positive, supportive and nurturing environment.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Families
Goal: The Northern Michigan Diabetes Initiative is a regional collaboration dedicated to prevention, early detection, and management of diabetes. The Healthy Family Backpack Program connects with youth and their parents to educate participants on proper nutrition and promote healthy lifestyles to reduce childhood obesity.
Impact: The Northern Michigan Diabetes Initiative has distributed nutritional education materials to over 300 families. Of ninety-two families that set a healthy goal at the start of the program, forty-five continued to maintain that goal at the two-month mark.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Families
Goal: The OMI is a multi-sector effort to reduce the state's divorce rate, strengthen families, and reduce dependency on government support.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Disabilities, Children, Families
Goal: The program's mission is to empower families of children with special needs to understand and access the systems that serve them.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: Partners in School Innovation enables public schools in high-poverty Bay Area communities to achieve educational equity through school-based reform.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Civic Engagement, Older Adults, Families
Goal: The goal of the program is to create a sustainable, affordable, and healthy food system for a community through an urban farm and its various programs.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens
Goal: The goals of Photovoice are for Clarkston High School students to 1) document community health-related strengths and challenges through participatory research; 2) reflect, think critically, and dialogue about their research; 3) present their findings persuasively to pertinent stakeholders.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants
Goal: The goals and benefits of piltess drilling include:
-elimination of unsightly and hazardous pits
-a decrease in the need for cuts in sensitive and hilly areas
-a reduction in total surface disturbance associated with a well pad
-elimination of the risk of waterfowl and wildlife mortality related to pits
-elimination of the risk of damaging underground pipelines and utilities
-virtual elimination of drilling waste
-reduction of water consumption by as much as 80%
-elimination of soil segregation, which reduces wind erosion problems
-reduction of truck traffic associated with transporting drilling wastes by as much as 75%