An implementation partnership model for prevention policy, practice, and science

The mission of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (SAMHSA) is to prevent mental and substance use disorders through evidence-based prevention approaches, thereby reducing the impact of behavioral health conditions in America’s communities. Prevention interventions are delivered prior to the onset of a disorder and are intended to prevent or reduce the risk of developing mental and behavioral health problems. Effectively integrating evidence-based prevention practices, programs and polices into community and state systems requires SAMHSA to use relevant findings from the emerging field of implementation science. SAMHSA and the Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology for Drug Abuse and Sexual Risk Behavior (Ce-PIM) established a partnership for the purpose of generating empirical questions about implementation challenges pertinent to SAMHSA’s current prevention portfolio. A SAMHSA/Ce-PIM workgroup was established, including members from four SAMHSA prevention programs: the Strategic Prevention Framework State Initiative program, the STOP Act program, the Prevention Practices in Schools program, and the Garrett Lee Smith Youth Suicide Prevention program. The process by which the workgroup conducted the partnership (i.e., regular conference calls, emails, written documents, etc.) became a critical area needing exploration to sustain the partnership, and deepen the quality of the work. This roundtable will present challenges and barriers that affected the output of work and the normative processes created by the workgroup to bridge the culture between a federal services agency and a NIDA-funded research center. This kind of collaborative work will help bring preventive services, policies and research closer together. The staff from SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention and the Center for Mental Health Services and Ce-PIM will form a dynamic panel.