Lessons Learned in Implementation Science Lessons Learned in Implementation Science

Podcast with contributor Brad Karlin, PhD, ABPP

Brad Karlin, is a vice president and chief of mental health and aging with the Education Development Center(EDC). He leads EDC’s work with public and private health care systems to promote the dissemination and delivery of evidence-based psychological treatments to improve mental health and dementia care for older adults. He is also Adjunct Associate Professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

Prior to joining EDC, Karlin served as the National Mental Health Director for Psychotherapy and Psychogeriatrics for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system, where he developed and oversaw the nation’s largest dissemination of evidence-based psychotherapies and transformed geriatric mental health services.

Karlin is board-certified in geropsychology and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the inaugural Award for Outstanding Contributions to Continuing Professional Development in Psychology from the American Psychological Association (APA), a Certificate of Commendation from the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and the Outstanding Administrator award from the VA section of APA. He has also led numerous national committees and work groups, including serving as chair of an institute of Medicine panel on implementation models and systems.

Karlin earned a PhD in clinical psychology from Texas A&M University and completed a clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship in gerpsychology. He is a past president of the Society of Clinical Psychology and is a fellow of the American Psychological Association.

Marshall Swenson and Dean Fixsen discuss Marshall's experience working with MST.

Marshall E. Swenson, MSW, MBA is a Consultant for New Program Development at MST Services where he has worked since it’s inception in 1996. Two years prior to that he was an MST Expert at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC, the home of MST research. He received his MSW in Clinical Social Work from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1978, and his MBA from Centenary College of Shreveport, Louisiana in 1987. Prior to joining the MST team, he worked for more than 25 years in a variety of social work settings in clinical practice, supervision, administration and community organization.

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is a scientifically proven intervention for at-risk youth. Therapists work in the home, school and community and are on call 24/7 to provide caregivers with the tools they need to transform the lives of troubled youth. Research demonstrates that MST reduces criminal activity and other undesirable behavior. At the close of treatment, 87% of youth have no arrests.

Caryn Ward, PhD, is the Associate Director of Education and Measurement for the National Implementation Research Network at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Ward provides intensive, informed implementation supports to state and local education systems nationally through her work as the Co-Director of the State Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices Center, Center on School Turnaround, and National Center for Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning. In addition, she co-leads the development of several implementation capacity measures and fidelity measures for use within state and local education systems. Previously, she has provided direct and indirect services as a school psychologist, a Response to Intervention (RTI) district coordinator, and the project director for the North Carolina RTI Consortium. The consortium developed several implementation tools under Dr. Ward’s leadership such as the Implementation Roadmap and others to develop implementation capacity, solve problems, and assure organization wide evidence-based practice use and sustainability.

Academic Affiliation:
Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Education
Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Pharmacy

Areas of Expertise:
Implementation Science
Systems Change
Response to Intervention (RTI)

Education:
• PhD, School Psychology, NC State University
• MA, Experimental Psychology, UNC-Wilmington
• BA, Psychology, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

For more information, see Caryn's bio at:
http://fpg.unc.edu/profiles/caryn-s-ward

Hosted by Marie-Therese Schultes
Interviewee Courtney Luecking

Courtney began her doctoral training in the Nutrition Department at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2014. Prior to that she earned dual Master's degrees from Saint Louis University in Nutrition and Public Health, Courtney is also a Registered Dietitian with clinical, community, and research experience. Her research interests center on identifying mechanisms of change and supportive implementation strategies for health promotion and prevention interventions focused on nutrition and physical activity. She also has a strong interest in the influence of communication on health behaviors. Her dissertation aims to quantify the fidelity to implementation of a newly developed social marketing campaign to help early care and education providers and parents partner to promote healthy eating and active play among preschool-aged children. This information will then be used to specify how the campaign worked, for whom it worked, and under what conditions the campaign was successful so that an enhanced implementation strategy may be tested for increasing the level of parent involvement with the campaign.

To learn more about the networking group at UNC, please visit their website at http://implementationscience.web.unc.edu

Hosted by Marie-Therese Schultes
Interviewee Karen Blase

Karen Blase, PhD, is Senior Scientist Emerita at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Karen is a Founder, along with Dean Fixsen, of the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN). Karen has been a program developer, researcher, program evaluator, and published author in human services for over 40 years. Karen has had extensive involvement in implementation science and best practices, knowledge utilization, dissemination, program replication, and scale-up. She received her doctorate in Developmental and Child Psychology from the University of Kansas with a focus on school-based interventions and services for high needs children and youth.. Her work at Father Flanagan's Boys Home included working extensively with agencies and governments in 13 states and 2 Canadian provinces to establish evidence-based services. She has been engaged in effective scale-up of evidence-based practices, implementation capacity building, and systems change employing the Active Implementation Frameworks. As part of a research team, Karen was involved in completing a major review and synthesis of the implementation literature. This extensive review is providing guidance for the adoption, utilization, and scale-up of evidence-based programs and practices. For more information, see Implementation Research: A Synthesis of the Literature. Her current interests include the application of implementation science to civic engagement and social justice initiatives.