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, Community / Social Environment, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Families, Urban
Goal: Research shows that children benefit from kinship care in many ways. Kinship care can reduce the trauma that children may have previously endured and the trauma that accompanies parental separation by providing them with a sense of stability and belonging in an otherwise unsettling time. Children who have been placed with relatives may have experienced chronic neglect and physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. While these experiences place children at risk for behavioral and health problems, a positive relationship with a caregiver and a stable and supportive living environment can mitigate their impact.1 Grandparents, other relative caregivers, and “fictive kin” — close friends holding a family-like bond with a child — are in a unique position to fill this supportive role and promote resiliency.
The goal of Kinship Connections is to support kin families' social, emotional, and economic needs to increase placement stability within the child’s community. Specific program objectives are to improve family economic security, family relationship functioning, child well-being, and to increase kin caregiver social support.
1Center on the Developing Child. (2007). The impact of early adversity on children’s development (InBrief). Retrieved from https://developingchild.harvard.edu/ resources/inbrief-the-impact-of-early-adversity-onchildrens-development.
2 Generations United. (2017). In loving arms: The protective role of grandparents and other relatives in raising children exposed to trauma. Retrieved from https://dl2.pushbulletusercontent.com/ uhDY7UgdGYnOod6G7VFkdKnuzE3yALmr/17- InLovingArms-Grandfamilies.pdf.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Families
Goal: The program aims to provide information and resources to kinship caregivers (grandparents, relatives, foster parents, and others) in New York State.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Other Conditions
Goal: The goals of the KIP Program are to instill in the inmate community the knowledge and power to make healthy decisions and try to incorporate risk and harm reduction ideas into inmate lifestyles.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Adults
Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce public and worker exposure to secondhand smoke and to prevent youth initiation of tobacco.
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air
Goal: The goal of the Landfill Methane Outreach Program is to promote the use of landfill gas as an energy source.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: To create a health insurance access program that reduces barriers to obtaining insurance to care for Latinos in Boston.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use
Goal: The goals of this program are to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke, decrease the social acceptability of tobacco use, and promote cessation of tobacco use.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: The goal of this program is to improve health care accessibility and availability for low income, uninsured and underinsured residents of Marion County.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation & Prevention Program is to improve public health in the Commonwealth by reducing death and disability from tobacco use.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment
Goal: The goal of this program is to promote positive family relationships, help incarcerated fathers learn skills to be active and involved fathers, encourage incarcerated fathers to
provide financial support for their children, facilitate programs for offender families through community partnerships, and provide constructive opportunities for children to participate in special activities with their incarcerated father.