What if every decision we made was based solely on what we knew? How might that change our personal behaviors that impact our health? For example, if I took everything out of the equation other than what nutrients my body required, I would only select quality foods 100% percent of the time. This means I would never waiver on my decision to eat healthy, even when offered my favorite treat. When faced with the decision to grab a quick bite from fast food restaurant than to prepare a meal at home, I would never take the easy route to save time because of what I know to be true about nutrition. What if I grocery shopped based on what I know to be true? My grocery cart would contain only nutritious organic healthy produce and grass-fed beef, despite the much higher costs, because of the scientific research that pesticides are harmful. This sounds like a great plan until it comes to putting my intervention into action, also known as implementation. It is always easier said than done for a multitude of reasons that are easy to identify in this simple example: time, cost, and quality.
We have often found this same disconnect between what we know and what we do in our work for the same reasons noted above, time, cost, and quality. As facilitators of the Pathways to Permanency Project, Benchmarks’ facilitators identified through systems mapping that there are effective behavioral health interventions available, however, we heard from child welfare stakeholders that services are not always accessible. To keep child welfare involved youth in their own communities, it is important that children have access to treatment where they live. We can easily agree that this is best practice, however the disconnect between what we know and what we do appears yet again.
Barriers such as time, cost, and quality, make it difficult to implement the interventions that best serve our child welfare involved youth in their own communities. We heard from stakeholders that implementing interventions consistently across diverse North Carolina communities is complicated. This is where implementation science becomes a powerful tool. We know that intervention without implementation is futile. Project management tools, techniques, and methods, assist Benchmarks staff in facilitating six unique workgroups comprising of child welfare stakeholders. Our goal is to lead stakeholders through coordinated planning efforts to identify solutions and develop implementation plans that address the common barriers, time, cost, and quality to eliminate the disconnect between what we know and what we do.
The Pathways to Permanency Project strives to coordinate efforts between child welfare and behavioral health systems to ensure youth in foster care have access to high quality behavioral health services and a nurturing environment in which to thrive. Through coordinated efforts, stakeholders who serve child-welfare involved youth address the need for shared understanding, accessible quality behavioral health assessments and interventions, and safe and supportive homes.
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