Strategies

Connect incarcerated fathers to their families and prepare them for release via small group education sessions that address fathering knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors

Establish voluntary formal groups of residents who work together to create a unified voice, enhance living conditions in their neighborhood, and address neighborhood concerns

Support the efforts of neighborhood residents to work together in preventing crime by reporting suspicious or potentially criminal behavior to local law enforcement

Provided work supports for low income individuals and families (e.g., job search assistance, transitional jobs, subsidized child care, health insurance, etc.); participants worked at least 30 hours/week

Focus heavily on reading and math achievement, enforce high behavioral expectations through a formal discipline system, lengthen instructional time, and increase feedback on teacher performance

Provide home visiting services to low income, first time mothers and their babies, starting during pregnancy and continuing through a child’s second birthday

Improve work environments for nurses via establishment of strong nursing leadership, organizational support, etc.

Allow community members to gather, socialize, walk, run, bike, skate, etc. on streets temporarily to closed to motorized traffic; also called Ciclovía programs

Establish roads that avoid built-up areas such as towns, cities, or commercial/business districts

Support home visits that teach parents about early childhood development and effective parenting strategies, with child development screenings, parental meetings, and links to community resources

Engage community members to determine how public budgets are spent, ideally to improve neighborhood conditions and reduce inequality.

Regulate short-term loans that must be repaid by a borrower’s next pay day via bans, caps on maximum interest rates and loan amounts, or require minimum loan terms and credit cost

Teach positively stated behavior expectations to all students, often reinforced with prizes or privileges and supported with coaching and data

Support quality improvement efforts in early child care and preschool via financial incentives, standards, processes to monitor standards and ensure compliance, etc.

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social-emotional growth among children who are not old enough to enter formal schooling

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social development among young children from families with low incomes, with supports such as home visiting or parental education

Use databases, housed in state agencies, to track prescribing and dispensing of Schedule II, III, IV, and V drugs and other controlled substances

Allow law enforcement officials to stop drivers solely for failing to use a seat belt

Create a school culture of high behavioral and academic expectations, with intense tutoring, increased teacher performance feedback, lengthened instruction time, and health care services

Establish programs that accept expired, unwanted, or unused medicines from designated users and dispose of them responsibly

Bring people with diverse values and perspectives together to engage in facilitated, inclusive, and informed dialogues about a topic of public concern. Examples include Citizens’ Initiative Reviews, deliberative polling, citizen juries, and citizen’s assemblies.

Lend materials, offer gathering space, and provide educational, civic, and social programming; open to the community and publicly funded

Provide publicly funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) education to 3- and 4-year-olds, through large-scale or universal efforts

Increase the minimum and/or maximum age boundaries for youth to be processed in the juvenile justice system

Partner with doctors, nurse practitioners, and other medical professionals to incorporate literacy support into regular well-child visits, especially in lower income communities

Allow adults to possess a limited amount of marijuana for personal, non-medical use

Offer a refundable tax credit to working families with qualifying children or other dependents that receive care outside the home (e.g., a spouse with disabilities)

Apologize for the history and legacy of slavery and provide direct payments or community investments to Black descendants of people enslaved in the U.S.

Educate owners, managers, servers, and sellers at alcohol establishments about strategies to avoid illegally selling alcohol to underage youth or intoxicated patrons

Use victim-offender dialogue to address the harm caused by a crime and victims’ needs; can take place pre-arrest or post sentence via sharing circles, victim-offender mediation, or face-to-face conferences

Repeal government control over retail sales of alcoholic beverages, allowing commercial retailing of those beverages

Conduct individual assessments that gauge older adults’ risk of falling and develop personalized approaches to help prevent falls

Attach metal bars, frames, or crush proof cabs to a tractor that provide a safety zone for an operator in the event of a rollover or overturn

Establish transportation services for areas with low population densities using publicly funded buses and vans on a set schedule, dial-a-ride transit, volunteer ridesharing, etc.

Increase enforcement of laws that prohibit alcoholic beverage service to intoxicated customers, usually with fines, imprisonment, or revocation of a license

Organize tours of prison facilities for juvenile delinquents or youth at risk of delinquency and allow them to observe prison life and attend inmates’ presentations; also called juvenile awareness programs

Require school officials to apply predetermined consequences for certain infractions, regardless of situational context or circumstances; consequences are usually severe (e.g., suspension or expulsion)

Support programs to provide students with a nutritious breakfast in the cafeteria, from grab and go carts in hallways, or in classrooms

Provide sealants, fluoride treatment, screening, and other preventive dental care on school grounds via partnerships with dental professionals

Provide health care services on school premises to attending elementary, middle, and high school students; physical and mental health services provided by teams of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physicians

Provide youth with teen dating violence education that addresses healthy relationships, gender norms, relationship coercion, and violence in a school setting

Help students process trauma exposure and develop coping skills through individual or small group counseling with mental health professionals or school staff with trauma-specific training

Provide students from public schools, from low income backgrounds, or who have a high risk of dropping out and their families with information about social services and health care supports; also called community resource or family and community liaisons

Require a minimum age for sellers in off-premise locations that sell alcohol and servers and bartenders in on-premise locations

Reduce the number of students in elementary school classrooms

Provide comprehensive early childhood services, including high quality educational child care, health, and family support to address local needs

Adopt laws that hold private property owners who provide alcohol to minors or obviously intoxicated individuals on their property liable if someone is killed or injured as a result

Support individual and group use of internet-based tools to receive news, communicate or share information, collaborate on ideas, mobilize networks, and make collective decisions

Coordinate access to services across delivery systems and disciplinary boundaries (e.g., housing, disability, physical health, mental health, child welfare, workforce services, etc.)

Strengthen laws that allow young drivers to gain driving experience in stages; often includes passenger and nighttime driving limitations and higher minimum ages for learner’s permits, intermediate, and full licenses