Home > Promising Practices

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

Search Filters Clear all
(762 results)

Save a link to this search

Ranking
Featured
Primary Target Audience
Topics and Subtopics
Geographic Type
Search

Marin County Safe Routes to Schools (Marin)

Local

Filed under Local, Effective Practice, Community / Transportation, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Safe Routes to School program is to improve safety and encourage more children to safely walk and bicycle to school. In addition, the programs work toward reducing traffic congestion and improving health and the environment.

Goodwill Industries Transitional Jobs Program (San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin)

Local

Filed under Local, Effective Practice, Economy / Employment

Goal: The goal of this program is to help individuals make a successful transition to employment.

Marin Community Benefit Cooperative (Marin, CA)

Local

Filed under Local, Good Idea, Environmental Health / Energy & Sustainability, Adults, Urban

Goal: MCBC's mission and work is about educating, assisting, and empowering individuals to live and work more harmoniously with nature and their community to avoid further ruin of the planet's finite life-sustaining capacity. A principal objective of its mission is to end waste as we know it today.

Summer Bridge (Marin)

Local

Filed under Local, Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families

Goal: The program's goal is to help four- and five-year old children become better prepared for kindergarten.

Homeward Bound of Marin (HBOM) (Marin, CA)

Local

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Local, Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Rural

Goal: Homeward Bound of Marin's mission is to address and solve the homelessness problem in Marin County.

Growing Healthy Kids Project (Orange County, NC)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Families

Goal: The aim of the Growing Healthy Kids Project is to support nutrition, healthy eating, and family unity among local families by providing community gardening space.

Orange County Juvenile Substance Abuse Treatment Court (Orange County, FL)

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

Goal: Florida started the drug court movement by creating the first treatment-based drug court in the nation in 1989. The drug court concept was developed in Dade County (Miami, Florida) stemming from a federal mandate to reduce the inmate population or suffer the loss of federal funding. The Supreme Court of Florida recognized the severity of the situation and directed Judge Herbert Klein to research the problem. Judge Klein determined that a large majority of criminal inmates had been incarcerated because of drug charges and were revolving back through the criminal justice system because of underlying problems of drug addiction. It was decided that the delivery of treatment services needed to be coupled with the criminal justice system and the need for strong judicial leadership and partnerships to bring treatment services and the criminal justice system together.

Flex Your Power Case Study: Orange County Water District (Orange County, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Energy & Sustainability

Goal: OCWD's goals in 2001 were to reduce energy load, save money and preserve/extend equipment life. Its projects targeted power use in buildings' electrical/lighting systems; chemical and energy management issues concerning the plant treatment process and HVAC systems; and energy use by employees and ultimately customers.

Buncombe County Project Access (Buncombe County, NC)

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

Goal: The goal of Project Access is to improve access to specialty health care in Buncombe County.

Forsyth County Cancer Screening (FoCaS) Project (Forsyth County, NC)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of the FoCaS Project is to improve breast and cervical cancer screening participation among low-income women.

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.
Healthy Marin