Patricia D. Wilcox, LCSW
Friday, April 28, 2023
In-person
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
3 CECs

$60 – UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors
$75 – All Others

Social workers are often leaders in implementing practice changes within their programs. Whether the change is starting an evidence-based practice, transforming towards trauma-informed care, becoming more anti-racist, involving families in a new way, scaling up a pilot project to an entire agency, or something else, change is hard. Even when staff agree in theory, it is often difficult to alter daily practice. 75% of change efforts fail because organizations or communities weren’t ready for the change.

Luckily, there’s actually a science of how we can create change. Implementation Science is about using strategies to change people’s behavior. It’s going beyond just awareness and knowledge to really change behavior. Implementation Science is the study of methods to promote the adoption and integration of evidence-based practices, interventions, and policies into routine health care and public health settings to improve the impact on population health.
We can use this knowledge to become more skillful in our own change efforts. Underlying the practice of implementation is a science of implementation that addresses:

• What are the best strategies to change people’s behavior?
• What kind of implementation supports might you need to support people to actually use those strategies?
• What are the different contextual factors that can affect implementation?
• What predicts sustainability?

Participants are urged to bring ideas about a change effort in which you are currently immersed or one you are contemplating. You will leave with an implementation plan and some tools to use with your initiative. Teams who are working together will benefit by attending this training together and working collaboratively on their plan.

We will use the theory and tools of Implementation Science to look at the core components of implementing, including:

Forming and maintaining relationships
Defining the why
Selecting the intervention
Defining who will be doing what differently
Assessing barriers and facilitators
Selecting and enacting strategies
Planning for sustainability
Evaluation

As a bonus, the seminar will include an optional virtual follow-up session during which participants can share their progress with each other and learn from each other’s experiences.

At the conclusion of this seminar, participants will be able to:

1. define Implementation Science and list its primary components
2. create an implementation plan which includes the why, who, and how of a change
3. analyze the barriers and facilitators for their proposed change
4. develop a specific plan of strategies to address the barriers they face
5. develop and plan to measure their efforts and increase sustainability

 

The seminar will be informed by materials adapted from The Center for Implementation, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, notably:

Moore, J.E., Khan, S. (2020). Implementation, Spread, and Scale Course and Workbook. The Center for Implementation: Ontario, Canada.
Moore, J. E. & Khan, S. (2022). StrategEase: The HOW of Creating Sustainable Change Course and Workbook. The Center for Implementation: Ontario, Canada.