Bridge over troubled water: using implementation science to facilitate effective services in child welfare

To maximize benefits to children and their families, effective practices need to be used competently in child welfare settings. Since the 1990s, researchers and policy makers have focused attention on empirically supported interventions (ESIs). Much less attention has been paid to what is needed to implement these in a range of real-world settings. Without proper implementation, which includes an evaluation strategy from feasibility to fidelity to on-going work on moderators and mediators of program effects, established effective programs can be rendered ineffective in practical application. The paper will touch on progress, to date, of implementation science, its application to child welfare programs and practices, and will highlight a set of practical strategies for implementing empirically supported interventions in child welfare.