Background: There is a growing emphasis of evidence-based program requirements being integrated into social welfare policies for youth care services in the U.S. This trend highlights the need for increased practitioner understanding and involvement in the research process to develop and implement evidence-based programs for youth with emotional…

It is possible to discern a new trend replacing New Public Management (NPM) in human service organisations. This trend comprises a discussion about evidence and governance with the goal of establishing a knowledge-based practice within Swedish social service. Efforts aimed at promoting an evidence-based practice have been an explicit part of…

In discussions and empirical investigations of the implementation of evidence-based interventions there is often a narrow focus on treatment fidelity. Studying a social services agency trying to incorporate Motivational Interviewing (MI), commonly regarded as evidence-based, this paper problematises a one-sided attention to treatment fidelity by…

Objectives: This study evaluated the effects of the Adoption Preservation, Assessment, and Linkage (APAL) postpermanency program. Method: A quasi-experimental, posttest-only design was used to estimate the program's effects on youth discharged from foster care to adoption or legal guardianship. A random sample was surveyed (female = 44.7%; African…

Objectives: To examine the components affecting the quality of the implementation and their impact on the outcomes of the "Growing Up Happily in the Family" program targeted at parents with children aged 0-5. Method: At-risk and non-at-risk parents (N = 196) participated in 26 groups in local social services. Adherence, adaptations,…

Traditional approaches to disseminating research based programs and innovations for children and families, which rely on practitioners and policy makers to make sense of research on their own, have been found insufficient. There is growing interest in strategies that "make it happen" by actively building the capacity of service providers…

The Case Management Partnership Initiative (CMPI) addresses chronic truancy by linking truant ninth graders and their families to social services and case management, along with regular interagency case management meetings. A pilot was conducted at Anacostia and Ballou High Schools in 2011-2012. The implementation evaluation found that the pilot…

This study examined the effectiveness of online education to providers who serve people experiencing homelessness, comparing online and face-to-face training of Critical Time Intervention (CTI), an evidence-based case management model. The authors recruited 184 staff from nineteen homeless service agencies to participate in one of two training…

The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project is the first major opportunity to use a behavioral economics lens to look at programs that serve poor and vulnerable people in the United States. Sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S.…

Few social science theories have a history of conceptual and empirical study as long as does the diffusion of innovations. The robustness of this theory derives from the many disciplines and fields of study in which diffusion has been studied, from the international richness of these studies, and from the variety of new ideas, practices, programs,…

The 2007 Aaron Rosen Lecture was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Social Work and Research, January 12, 2007, in San Francisco, CA. The lecture begins by describing the gap between what is known about efficacious treatments and other evidence-based practices on the one hand and the services that are provided in actual…

A coordinated school health program has numerous mutually reinforcing components: a healthy environment; comprehensive health education; physical education; health services; counseling, psychological, and social services; nutrition services; staff health promotion; and family and community involvement. Program implementation steps are outlined. A…

The Better Babies Project is attempting to intervene with inner city pregnant women, many of whom are poor, to change their behavior in order to reduce the many behavioral risks associated with delivering a low birthweight infant. The research objective of this intervention is to offer and document the provision of consistent and comprehensive…

Information is presented to help individuals and groups translate their concerns about youth into concrete, constructive action in the community. At the heart of the guide is a step-by-step process for action. The first section deals with taking individual action, exploring ways that the individual can make a difference. The second part of the…

This paper describes the Starting Early Starting Smart (SESS) project, an early intervention program that has been developed in the context of the national, multi-site program and evaluation. The emphasis in SESS is on the integration of behavioral health services into easily accessible, non-threatening settings where caregivers naturally and…