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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.

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Hope Street Family Center- School Readiness Program (Los Angeles)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The program’s overall goal is to prepare children and their families for successful entrance into kindergarten through full-day, center-based early childhood education and family support services.

Imagination Library

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to promote children's imagination, and to nurture children's aspirations and dreams for the future.

It's a Habit, Sammy Rabbit! (USA and international)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Investment & Personal Finance, Children, Families

Goal: The goal of It's a Habit, Sammy Rabbit! is to teach financial literacy and other life skills and habits to young children.

Jumpstart: Connect Early

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

Goal: The goal of the Jumpstart program is to build language and social skills in preschool children by providing one-on-one mentoring with college students throughout the school year.

Migrant Education Even Start (MEES) (California)

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

Goal: The program's mission is to help prepare children of migrant workers in California to be successful in school.

Parent Voices (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Children, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of Parent Voices is to improve access to child care for all families through advocacy.

PAX Tools for Human Services (Tucson/Pima/Arizona)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: PAXIS Institute develops, implements, and supports tested and proven solution-focused strategies with real-world outcomes for children and the adults who care for them in partnership with communities to reduce historical disparities and improve lifetime outcomes to create population-level peace, productivity, health, and happiness.

The mission of the PAX Tools for Human Services program is to empower individuals and communities to create a more nurturing environment with universal access to research-based prevention science in order to improve the well-being and lifetime outcomes of people from all walks of life around the world.

Project Graduation Really Achieves Dreams (GRAD) (USA)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Urban

Goal: The mission of Project GRAD is to provide quality public school education for at-risk children in low-income communities and to increase high school and college graduation rates among these populations.

Quality Counts (Palm Beach)

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

Goal: 1. To produce positive outcomes for children.
2. To provide consumer education to help parents recognize, expect and seek out quality in a childcare setting and to articulate the standards for quality to childcare providers and parents.
3. To define, advocate for and obtain the resources necessary to encourage, support and promote quality early care and education.

Raising A Reader (USA)

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

Goal: Raising A Reader's mission is to foster healthy brain development, encourage parent and child bonding through reading together and facilitate future school success by increasing reading skills.

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.