ABSTRACT
The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (2004) calls for a transformation of the behavioral health care system; interventions are to be guided by best practices, driven by consumers and families, and result in quality of life improvement for consumers and families living with a mental illness. To increase the effectiveness and efficacy of intervention services, models of evidence-based practices (EBP) have been adopted by many managed behavioral health care organizations. However, efforts to integrate EBP into real world behavioral health care settings often fail to produce the same outcomes that demonstrated positive change for consumers and families in the controlled experimental settings used to establish and test the models (Anthony, Rogers, & Farkas, 2003). Yet, it is no longer acceptable for behavioral health care organizations to plan and develop programs within the mental health service delivery system without being informed by the current research on EBP. Managed behavioral health care organizations are faced with the challenge of adopting, translating and implementing EBP within real world mental health practice environments.
