Becoming an Evidence-Based Service Provider: Staff Perceptions and Experiences of Organizational Change

Excerpt

In 2006, Ontario’s Policy Framework for Child and Youth Mental Health identified a need to improve the dissemination of what works in mental health practice and put it into practice.1 While an encouraging policy direction, the operationalization of evidence-based practice (EBP) implementation in child and youth mental health systems requires further consideration and the provision of support at the organizational and workforce levels. Thus far, the field of implementation science has identified that the implementation of effective and efficient behavioral health treatment programs involves a number of factors beyond that of consulting the research evidence and committing to the adoption of a particular practice.2‐4 The range of factors identified as important in EBP implementation is captured in several frameworks and has been synthesized in a Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR).5 This framework provides an overarching typology or meta-theory of relevant implementation constructs: intervention characteristics, outer setting, inner setting, characteristics of the individuals involved, and the process of implementation.5 The CFIR identifies constructs for which evidence supports their influence (positively or negatively, as specified) on implementation but does not specify the interactions between these constructs. …