The Applied Promising Practices (APP) initiative reflects the Federation’s growing interest in the development and distribution of promising practices that are informed by both practice knowledge and academic research. The intended short-term result of our APP projects is to enhance service delivery to children, youth and families in British Columbia. Our longer-term aim is to support the development of organizational cultures that value evidence-based service delivery and continuous quality improvement within human service organizations. The APP initiative’s goals are to:
- Identify, implement and evaluate promising practices that are relevant to diverse BC contexts.
- Increase organizational capacity to collect and analyze data from ongoing service delivery.
- Increase the use of quality improvement processes for ongoing enhancement of service delivery.
- Increase the adoption and integration of promising practices in child, youth and family organizations through the timely distribution of new and emerging knowledge to front line practitioners and program leaders.
Background:
The Applied Promising Practices (APP) Project was launched in 2008 through a partnership between the Federation and the Canadian Outcomes Research Institute (CORI) with funding from Human Resources Social Development Canada (HRSDC). We wanted to support practitioners and managers in community agencies to look more closely at practices that they believed were making a positive difference in the lives of people they served. We first invited practitioners to identify practices that they thought were working or could work if more systematically implemented. We then encouraged them to find other practitioners and agencies in their geographic area or field of interest to join with them in this inquiry. Four groups emerged and launched APP projects:
- A Lower Mainland group brought together five agencies who were all curious about youth hubs and integrated sites
- A southern Vancouver Island group pulled together six agencies to look at family preservation and support, and then specifically investigated different clinical supervision models for family preservation staff
- A group comprised of five agencies from the Interior and North regions looked at staffed residential care for youth, beginning with intake practices
- Seven agencies in the Upper Fraser area looked at practices within Family Resource Programs that supported early childhood development.
Each group was supported by a facilitator/researcher from the Federation/CORI team that assisted the group to: identify promising practices; collect relevant academic research evidence; develop a plan for implementing or scaling up the promising practice; evaluate the outcomes; and share the findings within the community of agencies and more broadly.
HRSDC funding ended in 2009, and CORI closed its doors shortly after, however, the APPs were so positive that the Federation decided to continue to support the APP projects as a ‘strategic investment’ in service quality. Additional funding was received from an anonymous donor in 2009-10 that helped the Federation sustain and expand the APP initiative. At this time, the Federation does not have project funding, but has integrated APP initiative into its service quality and applied research agenda under CoreBC.
Current APP Projects:
Currently we have three active APP projects:
- The Interior residential services for youth community of practice is going strong and is now planning to implement some of the recommendations arising from the Residential Services Review that has been completed by MCFD and the Federation.
- Fifteen agencies in the Capital Region have launched an APP on youth housing and homelessness. This group has arisen from the Youth Housing Coalition that has been working together and sharing information for several years. Now they will undertake some focused work.
- The Upper Fraser community of practice on early childhood development in a family resource program (FRP) context has completed their research and a final report will be published in November, 2011. The participatory approaches used in this inquiry with parents are a promising research practice in their own right. But they have also identified a number of FRP practices that parents have said are particularly meaningful and effective. This information will enable the FRP staff to be even more intentional in their practice and will support staff recruitment, development and clinical supervision.
The southern Vancouver Island group is on hiatus due to significant changes in the service delivery system in the Capital region, but hope to resume their inquiry into family preservation and development practices, with attention on therapeutic visitation practices (a more intentional approach to supervised access visits).
The Lower Mainland group completed their work in 2010. However with the growing interest in and pressure on hubs and integrated sites, and the recently completed Residential Services Review recommendations in hand, they may reconvene to pursue new areas of inquiry, such as how hubs can facilitate permanency for older youth and better support youth transitioning into adulthood.
The Federation is also seeking funding to launch three new APP projects that will each identify, implement/scale up and evaluate practices that support older youth who are transitioning out of the residential care system into either the adult services system or adulthood. Of particular interest is how to better support older youth/young adults who live with mental health and substance use concerns.
To review the documents and resources prepared by the APP communities of practice, click here.
To read more about the Key Elements of APP Projects and what you can expect from taking part in APP Project, click here.
For further information contact: Jennifer Charlesworth, Jennifer@fcssbc.ca