Evidence Based Practice in Systems of Care for Children with Complex Mental Health Needs

Purpose: Community-based social work with families and youth with complex behavioral health needs highlights challenges to incorporating empirical evidence into routine practice. This article presents a framework for integrating evidence in community-based Systems of Care for these children and their families.Method: This article reviews research on various approaches to integrating evidence into children's behavioral health and community-based care and contextualizes it within dominant paradigms of Systems of Care (SoC) and Wraparound principles.Results: Based on this review, this article proposes the Evidence-Based Practice in Systems of Care (EBP in SoC) model. The model describes how to incorporate evidence into every aspect of community-based SoCs for children with mental health concerns.Discussion and Conclusion: Discussion of the model will focus on implications of using the framework for practitioners, mental health organizations, communities, and state and federal administration and policymaking.