Perspectives from Community-Based Organizational Managers on Implementing and Sustaining Evidence-Based Interventions in Child Welfare

ABSTRACT

The managers of community-based organizations that are contracted to deliver publicly funded programs, such as in the child welfare sector, occupy a crucial role in the implementation and sustainment of evidence-based interventions to improve the effectiveness of services, as they exert influence across levels of stakeholders in multitiered systems. This study utilized qualitative interviews to examine the perspectives and experiences of managers in implementing SafeCare®, an evidence-based intervention to reduce child maltreatment. Factors influencing managers’ abilities to support SafeCare® included policy and ideological trends, characteristics of leadership in systems and organizations, public–private partnerships, procurement and contracting, collaboration and coopetition, and support for organizational staff.

KEYWORDS:

• Child maltreatment
• evidence-based practice
• institutional theory
• management
• resource dependency theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study is supported by U.S. National Institute of Mental Health grants R01MH072961 and R01MH092950 and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant R01CE001556 (Principal Investigator: Gregory A. Aarons). We thank our participants for their collaboration and involvement in this study.