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Presented at the 18th Annual Research Conference

Role of Treatment Fidelity in Determining Effectiveness: Continuing Evidence for Re-ED's Ecological Approach

We're sorry, handouts are not available for this presentation.

Session Number: 39 Room: Salon G

Presentation Type: symposium

Chair: Frank A. Fecser Discussant: Albert Duchnowski

Synopsis: Early Re-ED projects were extensively researched and recommended for dissemination on the basis of markedly positive results. This symposium will briefly review that research, then present the rationale for and results to date of a multi-agency effort to: (1) identify essential Re-ED elements, (2) develop a treatment fidelity measure, and (3) link fidelity to positive outcomes as a means of demonstrating evidence in current Re-ED programs. The role of treatment fidelity in defining programs, conducting research, and interpreting outcomes will be a major theme.

Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Session Time: 1:15 PM - 2:45 PM

Old and New Research on Re-ED's Ecological Competence Approach

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Presenting: Mary Cantrell

All Authors for this paper: Mary Cantrell

Presentation Type: element of symposium

Synopsis: Re-ED's ecological approach to serving troubled and troubling children and their families began with extensive research on two different services applying the philosophy and principles (in short term residential treatment and in public school support). Their positive results and recommendations for dissemination will be summarized. Subsequent Re-ED programs have adapted the principles and practices in a wide variety of service modes, but funds for controlled research have not been available. The rationale will be presented for a multi-agency national research effort now underway to establish Re-ED's current evidence base, verifying the approach's applicability to a broad base of children and families.

Developing an Empirically-Based Model of Service: The Re-ED Essentials Project

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Presenting: Pamela Meadowcroft

All Authors for this paper: Pamela Meadowcroft

Presentation Type: element of symposium

Synopsis: Model fidelity only recently became an area of measurement interest, given the current emphasis on evidence-based practices in human services. Most fidelity criteria use easy-to-measure structural program features (e.g., case load, contact frequency), process criteria (e.g., staff-client interaction types) may have greater validity as measures of a particular model, and may relate more strongly to client outcomes, despite their greater difficulty in measurement. Descriptions of the empirical development of Re-ED criteria, their use as best practice standards, and their contribution to a database for validity research will be presented.

Towards Establishing Re-ED Validity: Preliminary Analyses and Results

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Presenting: Robert Cantrell

All Authors for this paper: Robert Cantrell

Presentation Type: element of symposium

Synopsis: Analyses used to determine Re-ED essentials indicated high agreement among Re-ED staff. When the same survey was administered to staff in other, more traditional children's mental health settings, ratings indicated far greater variability. Comparison of both data sets indicated 39 survey items significantly discriminated between the two groups. Further cluster analyses identified three groups clustered on two dimensions, yielding a Re-ED thinking group (independent of program affiliation), an administrator systems-thinking group, and a group focusing on therapist-child interactions. Crucial analyses linking program outcomes to Re-ED attributes are yet to come.

Developing, Using, and Improving Fidelity Measures

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Presenting: Karen Blase

All Authors for this paper: Karen Blase

Presentation Type: element of symposium

Synopsis: Fidelity measures play an increasingly important role in defining programs, conducting research, and interpreting outcomes. They are also important to facilitating program replications and in a continuous quality improvement framework by discriminating implementation from effectiveness issues. Fidelity measures are a critical source of feedback for practitioners, supervisors, managers, program developers, researchers, and policy makers/implementers. Such measures are essential to the evaluation, cultural adaptation, and population adaptation of evidence-based programs and practices. This presentation briefly reviews the learning from a synthesis of the implementation literature related to fidelity across domains. In addition, the presentation provides an implementation framework for systematically analyzing and improving fidelity.