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 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, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Families
Goal: Nurses for Newborns aims to provide a safety net for families at-risk and in-need of extra assistance, with programs serving teen moms, mothers with disabilities, infants that are sick, and other families in-need to prevent infant mortality, child abuse, and neglect.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Men, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of the Nurturing Fathers Program is to teach men parenting and nurturing skills.
Impact: Thousands of fathers have benefited from the Nurturing Fathers Program. The program has been successfully implemented by non-profit organizations as well as federal, state, and municipal government entities.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families
Goal: The long-term goals of this program are to decrease the rate of recidivism in families receiving social services, lower the rate of multiparent teenage pregnancies, reduce the rate of juvenile delinquency and alcohol abuse, and stop the intergenerational cycle of child abuse by teaching positive parenting behaviors.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Families
Goal: To increase dietary variety, decrease the intake of saturated fat and increase the intake of vegetables during the main meal among families with financial problems.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of the program is to assist students in establishing physical activity as part of their daily lives.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to foster dialog, negotiation, and problem solving between offenders and victims in Oakland.
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, Education / Literacy, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of One City One Book: San Francisco Reads is to encourage enjoyment of reading, literacy, and community by having San Franciscans read and discuss the same book at the same time.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of the Open Airways for Schools intervention is to improve asthma control among children in Latino communities in Chicago.