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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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Market Bucks (Minneapolis, MN)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity

Goal: The goal of the Market Bucks program is to encourage shopping at farmers' markets and healthier eating.

Impact: Market Bucks have successfully increased the amount of EBT purchases made at farmers markets and increased fruit and vegetable consumption among participants.

Runaway Intervention Program (RIP) (St. Paul, Minnesota)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Runaway Intervention Program is to prevent or reduce risky behaviors of young runaway girls that have been sexually abused or exploited in order to return participants to a healthy developmental trajectory.

Impact: This program is a promising intervention for restoring sexually abused runaway girls to a healthy developmental trajectory, with particular benefit to those who are at the highest risk.

The Backyard Initiative (Minneapolis, MN)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Prevention & Safety, Children, Teens, Adults, Older Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Backyard Initiative is to improve health and health care.

WomenVenture (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: WomenVenture helps women of all ages, cultures, races and income levels achieve economic success.

EMERGE (Minneapolis, MN)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Employment, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: Invest in people through social enterprise.

Minnesota Family Investment Program (Minnesota)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Government Assistance, Families

Goal: The goal of the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) is to help families transition to economic stability by providing financial incentives to work.

Impact: Although MFIP cost Minnesota more than the ADFC welfare program, MFIP overall increased employment and wage earnings of participants by supplementing low income with welfare supplements. Most encouragingly, there is evidence to suggest the effects of the program persist after the program ended for the most disadvantaged.

The Strategies for Workforce Inclusion and Family Training (SWIFT) Project (Minneapolis, MN)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment

Goal: Since Project SWIFT was not a direct service program, the major goal was for youth to receive direct services from partner agencies. Toward this aim, the project educated parents and staff from partner agencies to better meet the needs of youth with disabilities.

Community-based Exposure Study and Development of a Community-First Communication Model (San Francisco)

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Rural

Goal: The goal of this study was to address the health effects of PFOA pollution, with a strong desire to implement a community-driven communication strategy to communicate the study results.

Strong Hearts, Healthy Communities (StrongPeople Healthy Hearts)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults

Goal: SHHC targets individual, social, and built environment levels of behavior change and is designed to improve diet and physical activity behaviors, assess and improve local food and physical environment resources, and shift social norms about active living and healthy eating through civic engagement and capacity building.

Beats and Rhymes (Minneapolis, MN)

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

Goal: The mission of Beats & Rhymes is to provide schools and community centers with the knowledge and resources they need to implement their own successful program, and subsequent music group.

Impact: Beats & Rhymes teaches youth music-making skills through implementation in various Minneapolis after-school programs.

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.