Improving the Effectiveness of Mental Health Services

Excerpt

As a journal that focuses on administration, policy, and mental health services it is my pleasure to present this special issue that is on improving mental health services through closing the well publicized gap between research and practice. The first section of this issue was developed by guest editor David Chambers. This section describes a developing field called implementation sciences. It is my sense that one of the major reasons for our failure to affect services is our lack of knowledge on how to best implement and sustain change. Have we been too ambitious in expecting most of our interventions to work? We are starting to learn that good ideas are not sufficient for change to occur. Understanding the complexity of organizations and the motivations of key actors are also necessary. …