Strategies

What Works for Health includes evidence-informed strategies to create communities where everyone can thrive.

56 Strategies
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School-based trauma counseling

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Education

Small elementary classes

Reduce the number of students in elementary school classrooms

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Education

Smart Start North Carolina

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Education

Smoke-free policies for multi-unit housing

Implement private sector rules or public sector regulations that prohibit smoking in and around multi-unit housing

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Tobacco Use

Social media for civic participation

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Family and Social Support

Social service integration

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Family and Social Support

Summer youth employment programs

Provide short-term employment opportunities for youth, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Community Safety
  • Employment

Tobacco retailer location restrictions

Set the number, type, proximity, and density of tobacco retailers, especially near homes and schools, via state or local zoning, licensing restrictions, or other regulations

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Tobacco Use

Trauma-informed approaches to community building

Support and strengthen traumatized and distressed residents and communities and address effects of community trauma (e.g., poverty, violence, structural racism, etc.) via a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder, and multilevel approach

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Family and Social Support

Trauma-informed juvenile justice systems

Support a trauma-informed juvenile justice system to recognize and respond to trauma’s impact on youth through staff training and broad adoption of trauma-informed practices and policies

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Community Safety