Identifying Best & Promising Practices

Materials: Projector and screen Handouts: 4 articles (6 copies of each article) Handout: Best Practices Resource Jam

Definitions (10 min)

Best Practice: A method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means. Research validated or field tested? Promising Practice: An emerging method or technique that has proven effective at achieving a specific aim, and may hold promise for other contexts. Examples: is it a best practice, promising practice, or mystery practice? Read the description, allow members to guess, then give the answer. WASHING HANDS: Regular hand washing with warm, soapy water prevents the spread of waterborne and infectious diseases. It cuts the incidence of childhood diarrhea in half and reduces childhood pneumonia by one quarter, two of the leading causes of death worldwide for children under five years old. (Best-research validated) CHICKEN SUIT: A restaurant owner hires someone to stand at the curb in a chicken suit with a sign for the restaurant a couple times per year and always sees sales increase during that week. (Promising) DIAPER DRAMA: Disposable diapers and cloth diapers have been shown to have the same environmental impact if you use a diaper service to pick up, clean and deliver your cloth diapers. (Mystery) ELECTRONIC RECORDS: The use of electronic medical records contributes to earlier diagnosis and intervention leading to better health outcomes. (Best-field tested)

Process (10 min)

Process adapted from IDS: Identifying and Promoting Promising Practices, commissioned and hosted by Compassion Capital Fund (details below). 1. Identifying a need: done through interview with Supervisor: impact focus area.

2. Identifying a best or promising practice (Identifying and Promoting Promising Practices p 14). a. Use your interviews, networks, reading, and searches to find a practice being implemented locally (or recorded on video). b. Can you trust it? i. Source: Who is promoting it? Why is it being promoted? ii. Field-tested: Has this been used by multiple organizations with positive results? iii. Adaptable: Is this relevant to your organization and clients/volunteers? c. Lesson: the practice that the evidence states is most effective may not be the practice being promoted!! Be flexible and critical as you investigate promising practices. LARGE GROUP (5 min) Divide members into groups of four and hand out one type of article to each member (4 different articles per group). Ask them NOT to read the whole article, but just the headline as you introduce the four short research digests chosen and answer the Can you trust it? Ask them the question of Source: Who is promoting it? Why is it being promoted? Then verify the answers: 1. Report: The Positive Relationship between Family Involvement and Student Success a. Who is promoting it? The National PTA (Parent-Teacher Association) b. Why is it being promoted? To identify the research basis of the PTA national standards. 2. Learner Persistence in Adult Education: California Adult Education Research Digest a. Who is promoting it? New England Literacy Resource Center. b. Why is it being promoted? To share the findings of their study done with 18 adult literacy programs on persistence, alongside research findings from around the country as a resource for other adult education programs. 3. National Core Capacity Assessment Tool Dataset: Positive Deviance in Volunteerism & Service a. Who is promoting it? E-Volunteerism: A Journal to Inform and Challenge Leaders of Volunteers b. Why is it being promoted? As a research study that supports the findings of the Volunteer Impact Project (VIP)-An Innovative Approach to Strengthen Volunteer Engagement Capacity 4. Singable Books: Sing & Read Your Way to English Proficiency

a. Who is promoting it? Center for Applied Linguistics b. Why is it being promoted? Identify a field-tested promising practice with few supportive research studies, but easy and effective practical applications for practitioners. SMALL GROUP LEARNING CIRCLE (30 min) In groups of 4, members individually each read one of four two-page articles on promising or best practices on education or volunteer management. Summarize in a group and discuss answers to the following questions: i. Field-tested: Has this been used in multiple settings with positive results? ii. Adaptable: Is this relevant to your organization and clients/volunteers? iii. Why should we bother identifying and promoting best and promising practices? iv. Can you give another example of a best or promising practice that youve seen with data to demonstrate its effectiveness?

3. TRAINING ASSIGNMENT: Find, Describe and Document the Promising Practice a. Handout: Resource Jam. b. Take time to identify at least one best or promising practice that is backed by research. i. Use the information from your mentor & supervisor interviews to identify resources. ii. Use trusted sources like the ones on the Resource Jam handout to find promising practices online. iii. Think about something your host site is already doing and ask for data or research about outcomes. c. Observe the best practice in action! Find out who is doing it locally and set up a visit. d. Take time to observe and document the practice. Ask questions to complete your reflection log for OnCorps. e. On Tuesday, March 13th, you will give a very brief two minute presentation on the best or promising practice that you observed. Make it as brief and interesting for others as possible, with thoughts on how it might be useful for yourself and other members. Type up your description and post it to your page on NEO Lit Corps Central and our email listserv. Questions?

Adapted from Intermediary Development Series: Identifying and Promoting Promising Practices. Created by Dare Mighty Things, Inc. for use by the

Compassion Capital Fund National Resource Center. Available online at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/ccf/about_ccf/gbk_pdf/pp_gbk.pdf