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 / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases
Goal: Vaccination programs in WIC settings include the following:
-Assessment of infants’ and children’s immunization status
-On-site vaccinations or referral to vaccination providers
-Additional interventions such as client reminder and recall systems, manual tracking and outreach efforts, or adoption of monthly voucher pickup schedules that require more WIC visits when vaccinations are not up-to-date
Vaccination services may be provided in WIC clinics, or through collocation and coordination of WIC programs with other healthcare services.
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends vaccination programs in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) settings—when used with additional components--to increase vaccination rates among children.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Adults, Women, Men, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of With All Families: Parents is to support pediatric care visits and improve child welfare by using screening tools and individual parent coaching to identify and address social determinants of health. Specific program objectives are to improve family functioning generally while specifically focusing on improving protective factors and economic-self-sufficiency. As part of the program, staff also work with families to increase parent concrete support and connect parents to needed physical health, behavior health, and educational resources for their child.
Research supports the benefits of using the strategies employed by With All Families: Parents (i.e., screening, resource navigation, and parent coaching) to improve family welfare by addressing underlying risk factors related to poverty and access to resources. For example, programs designed to provide screening and resource navigation support are associated with reduced social needs, improved child health and decreased child hospitalization visits. In light of evidence suggesting that social factors may in fact play a larger role in determining one’s health than medical care, programs that target these social factors, such as With All Families: Parents, are becoming increasingly important.
References
Garg, A., Toy, S., Tripodis, Y., Silverstein, M., & Freeman, E. (2015). Addressing social determinants of health at well child care visits: a cluster RCT. Pediatrics, 135(2), e296-e304.
Gottlieb, L. M., Hessler, D., Long, D., Laves, E., Burns, A. R., Amaya, A., ... & Adler, N. E. (2016). Effects of social needs screening and in-person service navigation on child health: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA pediatrics, 170(11), e162521-e162521.
Pantell, M. S., Hessler, D., Long, D., Alqassari, M., Schudel, C., Laves, E., ... & Gottlieb, L. M. (2020). Effects of in-person navigation to address family social needs on child health care utilization: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA network open, 3(6), e206445-e206445.
Braveman, P., & Gottlieb, L. (2014). The social determinants of health: it's time to consider the causes of the causes. Public health reports, 129(1_suppl2), 19-31.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Children, Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The program's primary goal is to prepare the Harvey County community for a disaster. It also seeks to increase outreach to minority communities and recruit volunteers for the MRC.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: Abriendo Puertas, developed for and by Latino parents, aims to increase the number of Latino children in the United States that enter school ready to learn and be able to succeed in life by building the capacity and confidence of parents to be strong advocates in the lives of their children.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of Assessment and Referral is to help individuals struggling with a substance use disorder evaluate their needs and strengths and begin to make healthy choices that improve the overall quality of their lives.
Impact: First Call provided over 1,700 assessments in 2013, and more than half of clients showed improvements in their Addiction Severity Index (ASI) scores or a decrease in substance use.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases
Goal: The purpose of the exercise was to train health and emergency medical personnel in planning for and responding to large scale disease outbreaks. The most proven method to assure an effective response to a real event is to practice a well-coordinated multi-agency field exercise.
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 Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Adults, Women, Men, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: To partner within communities and organizations to train professionals, community and parent leaders so the “Best Start” program can reach and support all families, but especially marginalized or struggling families and communities; to build the strong family/home, school and community environments that are necessary to support positive mental health, confidence, resilience and hope to achieve health equity, academic and economic opportunities for positive futures for all.
The Changing Children’s Worlds Foundation (CCWF) mission is for every child and adolescent to be supported in positive development by caregivers and professionals within loving, non-violent families and peaceful communities. Through parent groups and educational workshops we strive to promote a sense of community and foster empathy.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children
Goal: The goal of the Breathmobile® program is to help children control their asthma by providing accessible care at local school sites.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Urban
Goal: BUILD's mission is to engage at-risk youth in the schools and on the streets, so they can realize their educational and career potential and contribute to the stability, safely and well being of your communities.