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, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of the program is to teach parents/caregivers effective parenting skills, create a support system for their children, and equip participants with non-violent techniques to encourage a safe environment at home and in the community.
Impact: ACT program has been shown to prevent child maltreatment and promote positive parenting skills, including reducing physical violence towards children, improving knowledge of appropriate discipline, and improving parent methods for teaching children nonviolent social skills.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children
Goal: The goal of the Al's Pals program is to teach children how to practice positive ways to express feelings, relate to others, communicate, brainstorm ideas, solve problems, and differentiate between safe and unsafe substances and situations.
Impact: Studies have shown that the program resulted in higher degrees of positive change in the intervention groups, increases in prosocial behaviors and positive coping behaviors, and decreases in antisocial and negative coping behaviors.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: A.S.P.I.R.E aims to reduce teen tobacco use by helping current smokers to quit and preventing non-smokers from beginning to smoke.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens
Goal: The mission of the ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise & Nutrition Alternatives) program is to promote healthy sports nutrition and discourage the use of body-enhancing substances among middle and high school female athletes.
Impact: Participation in the ATHENA program results in significant reductions in the use of performance-enhancing substances, recreational drugs, diet pills, tobacco, and alcohol among female teen athletes. Healthier eating and other health behaviors, and body image perceptions were also improved.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children
Goal: The Be a Star program was developed to help preadolescents gain the knowledge and skills necessary to resist drugs.
Impact: During the third year of the evaluation, very strong differences emerged between intervention and control groups. The treatment groups scored significantly higher on the scales rating family bonding, pro-social behavior, self-concept, self-control, decision-making, emotional awareness, assertiveness, cooperation, attitudes toward drugs and alcohol, self-efficacy, attitudes toward African-American culture, and school bonding.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Family Planning, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goals of this intervention include: increasing information and skills to make sound choices, increasing abstinence, and eliminating or reducing sex risk behaviors.
Impact: Among teens who participated, there was a decrease in sexual activity compared to those who did not participate in the program. Also among participants, there was an increase in sexual intercourse occasions that were condom-protected.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Men
Goal: The goal of Behavior Management through Adventure is to address the needs of at-risk youth in therapeutic settings.
Impact: Behavior Management Through Adventure was successful in lowering rearrest rates, decreasing the time period from release until rearrest, improving depression symptoms, increasing family self-concept, and lowering social introversion.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use
Goal: The goal of Behavioral Couples Therapy for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse is to improve success rates for treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse by involving intimate partners in the treatment process.
Impact: Numerous studies of the program have shown positive outcomes in five areas: substance abuse, quality of relationship with partner, treatment compliance, intimate partner violence, and children's psychosocial functioning. BCT clients also reported more relationship satisfaction than non-participants.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the study was to prevent STDs in high-risk minority women through three culture-specific small group education and counseling sessions, delivered over time.
Impact: Reinfection rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea were significantly lower at each follow-up among participants in the small-group counseling sessions than in the control group. Integration of behavior-change theory with extensive qualitative data collected in target communities enabled the study to create culturally meaningful strategies to promote the recognition of risk and to stimulate motivation to effect personal change.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Other Conditions, Adults, Older Adults
Goal: Better Choices, Better HealthTM gives people with chronic conditions the skills to coordinate all the things needed to manage their heath, as well as to help them keep active in their lives.