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 Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to foster civic participation and encourage neighborhood revitalization while preserving open space. Community gardens provide green space and easily accessible recreational opportunities in the areas that need them most.
Filed under Good Idea, Health, Families, Urban
Goal: Heartsong’s mission is to provide children with special needs and their families with clinically-based music and art therapy programs.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: The program's objectives are to perform systematic and objective monitoring and evaluation of the quality and appropriateness of care and pursuit of opportunities to improve care and resolve problems as they are identified.
Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Employment, Women, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: Hot Bread Kitchen's mission is to increase economic security for foreign-born, low-income women and men by helping them gain access to the thriving specialty food industry.
Impact: Hot Bread Kitchen trains low-income, immigrant men and women for successful professional baking careers.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults mission is "a total community working together to provide services to, and develop skills in, older adults in order to promote independence and enhance their quality of life."
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban
Goal: The goal of Just Food is to build a more just food system in which family farmers make a fair profit for their efforts, and all people have access to affordable, healthy food. Just Food envisions a strong regional food system -- incorporating a diversity of rural farms and a robust urban farming component -- that preserves ecosystems, reduces pollution, promotes social justice, provides education about the environment, and invigorates rural and urban economies.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Teens, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of Keep It Up is to provide health screening and preventative care to Black men to promote HIV prevention and other health problems.
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 Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Older Adults
Goal: Kosher Meals for the Homebound is a program of Dorot, which alleviates social isolation among the elderly and provides services to help them live independently as valued members of the community.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The Latino Commission on AIDS focuses its efforts on HIV/AIDS in the Latino community through health advocacy, promoting HIV education, developing model prevention programs for high-risk communities, and building capacity in community organization.
Impact: As the only provider of Spanish language HIV treatment, the Latino Commission on AIDS has created a model of public health that uses training, outreach, prevention and culturally sensitive care for Latinos living with HIV/AIDS.