Evidence Based Juvenile Justice Services in MD February 28, 2008
Posted by rickbarth in Uncategorized.2 comments
This op ed in the Baltimore Examiner builds on an article in the New York Times of about a week ago indicating that NYC had done well by youth and the budget as a result of expanding the use of Multisystemic Therapy (although they don’t call it by that name, that’s what I understand it was) and Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care. MD is now calling for more evidence based services. I am not knowledgeable enough to know what will come of this initiative but the fact that op-eds and agency Secretaries are using the term “evidence-based practice” in MD is continued reason for us to grapple with what it means, how to train ourselves to deliver it, and how to implement it here.
At the same time, I hardly think that the evidence is so strong that the claims of the ope-ed title are going to be broadly met with the wider use of MST and MFTC. These are the best programs we have but their testing has been fairly modest. The underlying randomized clinical trials and the recent expansion to NYC are positive (although the implementation in NYC was not rigorously evaluated, as far as I know) and promising but the headline is a bit strong. (This may not be the fault of the author of the op-ed as headline writers march to their own drummers.)
