Implementation of evidence‐based practice: confessions of an enthusiastic amateur
| Pages | 134-140 |
| Date | 14 June 2013 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-02-2013-0002 |
| Published date | 14 June 2013 |
| Author | Tom Jefford |
Implementation of evidence-based
practice: confessions of an enthusiastic
amateur
Tom Jefford
Tom Jefford is Head of the
Youth Support Services in
Cambridgeshire County
Council, Cambridge, UK.
Abstract
Purpose – The article aims to examine the process and challenges of setting up and implementing
evidence-based programmes in regular service systems.
Design/methodology/approach – The article offers a first-hand account of a service manager seeking to
implement Multisystemic Therapy and Triple P.
Findings – The process of setting up and implementing evidence-based programmes involved significant
challenges, including securing funding, managing stakeholders, finding suitable staff, arranging training,
and managing supply and demand. Various relational, cultural and systemic issues need to be addressedif
the professional system is to embrace evidence-based programmes.
Originality/value – Few evidence-based programmes in the UK have been implemented extensively in
regular service systems. This is a first-hand account of a rare attempt to do so.
Keywords Multisystemic Therapy, Triple P, Evidence-based programs, Youth justice, Child mental health,
Implementation, Evidence-based practice, Youth, Mental health services
Paper type Case study
Introduction
I am Head of Service for the Youth Offending Service in Cambridgeshire and am employed by
a Local Authority, Cambridgeshire County Council. I run local services for young people aged
ten to 18 who are involved in or at risk of offending. The service is based within the Children and
Young People’s Services department and is locally managed by a partnership board comprised
of both criminal justice agencies and others that support children and young people. Youth
justice is supported and directed nationally by the Youth Justice Board (YJB), an agency within
the Ministry of Justice. The YJB set national standards for interventions, advise and direct
policy, promote effective practice with young people involved in the criminal justice system and
commission the provision of secure facilities.
Accidental beginnings
Like many things in life I stumbled upon what I was looking for by accident. In the year 2000
I was an operational manager for the Cambridgeshire Youth Offending Service. Our service
psychologist asked me along to lunchtime seminar at the local Child and Adolescent Mental
Health centre presented by the leading forensic adolescent psychiatrist Dr Sue Bailey. She had
just returned from the USA where she had undertaken a short training in Multisystemic Therapy
(MST). This is an evidence-based programme for anti-social adolescents which was developed
at the Medical University of South Carolina by Henggeler and Bourduin (1990). It promotes the
parent’s ability to monitor and discipline their children and replace deviant peer relationships
PAGE 134
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JOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S SERVICES
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VOL. 8 NO. 2 2013, pp. 134-140, CEmerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660 DOI 10.1108/JCS-02-2013-0002
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