Evidence-based treatments: challenges and priorities for practice and research

This article discusses key issues in identifying evidence-based treatments for children and adolescents. Among the issues discussed are obstacles in transporting treatments from research to clinical services, the weak criteria for delineating whether a treatment is evidence based, and barriers to training therapists. Recommendations for research are made to accord much greater attention to mechanisms of change in therapy so we understand why and how treatments work and can use this information to optimize treatment effects in clinical work. Other recommendations focus on the need for an expanded portfolio of therapies that consider disseminability, cost, and scale of applicability of treatment, and the importance of including systematic evaluation of patient progress over the course of therapy.