Clustering Practitioners Within Service Organizations May Improve Implementation Outcomes for Evidence-Based Programs

Abstract

Data for the present study were collected from Parent Management Training Oregon model (PMTO) therapists (n = 83) employed in Norwegian social service organizations. Survey data were analyzed using partial correlation, MANCOVA, and contrast tests. There were statistically significant positive relationships between the number of PMTO therapists working in an agency and respondents reports of: (1) how many families they had treated with PMTO in the past 6 months, (2) PMTO being well integrated in their organization, and (3) how much time they have to practice PMTO in their current position. In addition, practitioners in organizations with more PMTO colleagues were significantly less likely to report that they would stop using the program. Finally, there was a marginally significant positive relationship between the number of PMTO therapists in an agency and practitioners’ reports that they received a sufficient number of PMTO cases. The size of the organization, the number of years therapists had worked with PMTO, and therapist perception of agency leadership were controlled for. Contrast tests suggested that the most prominent differences were between agencies with three PMTO therapists versus agencies with one or two practitioners. There were exceptions to this result; for example, individual practitioners with four or more therapists in their agencies had treated significantly more families with PMTO in the past six months than those with three or fewer therapists. There were large effect sizes for the MANCOVA, F(20, 249) = 10.38, p < .01, η p 2 = .39, as well as the univariate tests. Implementation outcomes were not improved for PMTO therapists if there were practitioners within their agencies working with an evidence-based program other than PMTO. Results suggest that clustering practitioners using the same program within an organization, in groups of three or more, could contribute to successful implementation outcomes for evidence-based programs.