Summary
The mission of the Center for Evidence-Based Behavioral Health (CEBBH) is to increase the availability of cutting-edge, culturally responsive, evidence-based behavioral health interventions in our community and beyond for all youth, adults, and families in need. We are also committed to decreasing barriers in access to care so that all individuals have access to these high-quality behavioral health services. We accomplish these aims through two venues.
The Center for Evidence-Based Behavioral Health director is Christy Esposito-Smythers.
About
Source: Website
- We support research focused on the development, testing, and implementation of culturally responsive, evidence-based, behavioral health interventions in community settings.
This includes the study of training methods that allow for optimal learning and uptake by those we train as well as strategies to help organizations implement evidence-based practices. We engage community stakeholders as partners in all of our research to ensure that our work meet the needs of those we train and the patients they serve, consistent with a community-based participatory research approach.
- We offer training and consultation to the behavioral health workforce in our community (at no-cost to participants) in culturally responsive, evidence-based, behavioral health interventions and evaluate the outcomes of our work.
This work is conducted through a multi-disciplinary training consortium that was developed via an academic-community partnership between the GMU Psychology Department, Healthy Minds Fairfax and the Northern Virginia Regional Projects Office. Healthy Minds Fairfax and the Northern Virginia Regional Projects Office, with some in-kind-support from GMU, fund the training consortium.
Why is the work so important? On average, it takes 17 years for new interventions that are developed and tested in research settings to reach clinical practice settings in the community. This is referred to as the “research-to-practice gap.” Additionally, if poorly implemented in clinical practice settings, these interventions can lose their effectiveness with clients. The CEBBH is fully committed toward increasing the speed at which these cutting edge these interventions are developed and transported to community settings, as well as ensuring that optimal implementation methods are employed to increase the likelihood of success. We also engage students in the CEBBH in an effort to train the next generation of researchers and clinicians in this very important work.
The overall goals of our work are to:
- Equip behavioral health organizations with the ability to offer cutting edge, culturally responsive, evidence-based assessment and treatment services to their patients
- Equip behavioral health organizations with the ability to integrate culturally sensitive, evidence-based assessment, into clinical decision making, and engage patients in this process
- Equip case managers with the knowledge needed to refer families to the appropriate evidence-based services
- Facilitate the organizational infrastructure and funding needed to support and sustain the use of culturally responsive evidence-based practices
- Increase access to our trainings beyond Northern Virginia so that more organizations and individuals in need may benefit
The overall implications of our work for organizations and patients include:
- Improving the quality of care available in community settings
- Decreasing the length of care needed by patients
- Improving patient recovery and discharge rates
- Decreasing waitlists for services
- Increasing the number of patients served
- Improving access to care for all patients
- Decreasing health disparities
- Saving more patient lives
Contact
Email: Center
