Experiments show this is the best way to win campaigns. But is anyone actually doing it?

The Canadian reality show, “Political Blind Date,” pairs two politicians from opposing sides to spend two days together visiting each other’s constituents and wrestling with difficult issues. Fifty politicians have participated over five seasons, averaging about 195,000 viewers per episode. The aim is not to get them to change their minds, but to humanize people with opposing political beliefs and break down the increasingly common ‘us versus them’ mindset in politics. Advocates say that this has a “trickle down” effect on viewers forging greater understanding and more respectful debate.

Braver Angels works to decrease political polarization by pairing up Republicans and Democrats for one-on-one conversations about each other’s political views and experiences. The goal of the conversations is to encourage understanding through talking and listening, not to change anyone’s views. Participants often find they share similar goals but just have different perspectives on how to achieve them. The group has about 15,000 members representing every state. Membership surged after the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capital, after which around 4,500 Braver Angels gathered virtually to try and heal.

Several groups across the country are bridging the partisan divide by using civility and conversation to build bipartisanship and trust. The Frank P. Zeidler Center for Public Discussion helps members of the community and police talk. CivilPolitics.org offers evidence-based techniques to improve dialogue. And, the Millennial Action Project works with hundreds of young lawmakers across 27 state legislatures.

Juvenile detention usually leads to worse outcomes for youth in the future, while Juvenile Detention Alternatives allow for decreases in detention populations and the likelihood that youth will stay trapped in the system for life.

Braver Angels formed after the 2016 election to depolarize politics. The group’s Red / Blue Workshops bring together equal numbers of liberals and conservatives for structured conversations to help people build trust, understand one another, find commonalities, and learn lessons to bring back to their communities. It is rooted in couples and family therapy, with an emphasis on active listening and reflecting back what you hear. Instructions for organizing a workshop are on the group’s website and they have about 11,000 members, with a recent online event, Hold America Together, attracting 4,500 viewers.

Drug courts can help some people with serious drug problems who face serious criminal charges, if such court programs are run carefully, based on evidence-based approaches. But, too often, such courts – which push criminal defendants into treatment as an alternative to incarceration – can do more harm than good. The proof of drug courts' effectiveness is mixed, and fairly thin. Thousands of such courts exist, based on widespread political support for an approach seen as less punitive. But many critics say the courts' track record overall is weak and their approach can be just another form of punishment.

Teachers in North Carolina are struggling to find the best way to get students to talk about the intersections of diversity and identity. When a lesson at Heritage High School in Wake County was canceled due to parent concerns, the school dedicated itself to figuring out how to better discuss intersectionality while balancing privacy concerns of the students. This article cites the expertise of a counselor who specializes in identity and examines how the lesson can be taught better in the future.

A federal deportation program called Secure Communities has been around off and on since 2008, and is a collaboration between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While responding to a perceived connection between illegal immigration and crime, the heavy-handed approach to deportation hasn’t actually had any effect on crime rates, recent studies have shown. The research has also fact-checked another myth about the program – that it helps police solve crimes better – which hasn’t proven to have any distinct correlation.

Living Room Conversations facilitates civil discourse among people with different political views. The nonprofit encourages in-person meetings of groups of four to seven people with different backgrounds and views, ideally in a comfortable setting like a living room, coffee shop, or park, and provides over 100 guides on their open-source website to help participants engage in thoughtful dialogue. Rather than attempting to problem solve actual issues, the goal of the conversations is to humanize one another. Participants find the skills they learn useful in their personal relationships as well.

To prevent suicide amongst youth, research has shown that there's a simple strategy to get people the supports they need: training the adults in their lives on how to recognize warning signs and provide help. While the research is still preliminary, it highlights one more intervention technique to prevent teen suicide by helping youth in recovery stick to their treatment plans.