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, Economy / Employment, Children
Goal: The goal of this program is to give Manchester area youth tools to earn their GEDs and meet their career goals.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Urban
Goal: YO! Baltimore helps young people, previously disconnected from traditional learning environments, to increase their wage earnings and education credentials.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: Community Memorial Foundation's goal was two-fold: to decrease stigma surrounding youth depression and suicide and increase teen utilization of the Crisis Text Line.
Impact: An awareness campaign that incorporates age- and culturally-appropriate actors through various media can successfully increase teen and adolescent usage of a crisis text hotline.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Civic Engagement, Children, Urban
Goal: The mission of Youth Together is to develop the potential of youth to be critical thinkers, engaged community members, and social change agents in their schools and communities.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the program is to increase awareness of screening for sexually transmitted infections in African-American adolescents.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Urban
Goal: Youth UpRising aims to build youth leadership and affect positive community change by ensuring that youth and young adults are supported in the following key areas:
- Consciousness Raising that exposes them to a broader set of realities to develop their capacity to think critically about personal and community experiences;
- Personal Transformation that builds their capacity to transform experiences of trauma and oppression into opportunities for positive personal and community change; and
- Hard Skill/Leadership Development that increases their creativity, strengths, and skills as effective leaders who are competitive in the marketplace.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Teens
Goal: Youth Villages helps children and families live successfully.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment
Goal: The overall objective of the project was to identify and provide additional support and services to those youth, ages 14-21 enrolled in WIA-supported youth programs with mental health care needs.
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of Zoning for a Healthy Baltimore is to influence the final version of Baltimore’s new zoning code by informing stakeholders and decision-makers about the new zoning code’s potential to create healthy communities and decrease health disparities, with an emphasis on preventing obesity and crime.
Impact: Zoning for a Healthy Baltimore is an HIA of the Baltimore zoning code rewrite in order to maximize the potential to create healthier communities. Since publication, Baltimore has revised its zoning code to incorporate dispersal standards and other strategies related to placement of alcohol outlets.
Note: This practice has been Archived.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to divert young first-time offenders from court and into conferences where they can negotiate solutions with their families and their victims.