This chapter highlights several organizations that represent the “vanguard” in sex offender research and policy. The Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART), authorized as part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, works to provide state and local jurisdictions with guidance when implementing the Adam Walsh Act (AWA). The federal government and various states have enacted legislation in an attempt to effectively manage sex offenders in the community. The California Sex Offender Management Board (CSOMB), created in 2006 under Governor Schwarzenegger, serves to provide the governor, state legislature, and state and local agencies with assessments of the sex offender management practices currently in use and recommendations for areas that require further improvement. Evidence-based practices for community mandates have not been the only focus with regard to sex offenders in Minnesota.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has defined evidence-based practice (EBP) as “the integration of the best available research with clinical expertise in the context of patient characteristics, culture, and preferences”. This chapter highlights a number of contemporary approaches to counseling with children and adolescents. First, though, it is important to consider some issues specific to empirically supported treatments (ESTs) with children and adolescents. Children and adolescents are still developing in terms of cognitive style, self-concept, and overall worldview. It is key that interventions are tailored to match emerging abilities and relevant contexts. The chapter deals with evidence-based practice and issues with ESTs. Integrative approaches often involve the combination of two or more standard approaches into one treatment modality. Cognitive behavior therapy is one such integrative approach and, in general, the available empirical evidence demonstrates that, for most emotional and behavioral youth disorders, cognitive, behaviorally oriented therapies produce the best outcomes.

This chapter examines the process of program design, focusing on how agency and university leaders can initiate this process by assessing need, and then using the information gathered to effectively plan programmatic interventions to address these needs. It describes the use of logic models as a program planning tool and identifies the elements of good program design. The chapter also examines effective approaches for implementing programs and discusses how evaluation can be used to provide valuable feedback to those seeking to further adjust these programs to makes them more effective. The chapter provides an understanding, interpreting, and using best evidence-based practices to improve organizational effectiveness. It creates needs assessments and designs a logic planning model. The chapter identifies elements of good design and helps to understand how to implement the program. It discusses about evaluating the program and providing feedback mechanisms.

This chapter discusses strategic resource development. Strategic resource development entails creating a case statement, which is a description of your organization including its mission and goals and explains the rationale for why the agency needs financial support. A case statement also provides information to prospective donors about why you are seeking funds, how the donated funds will be allocated, and how the donation will help to achieve specific strategic objectives, while also identifying who exactly will benefit from these services. Successful funding strategies are discussed with examples from programs that have successfully raised funds. Organizations, particularly academic institutions, create research centers to advance opportunities for faculty to engage in creative activities and to provide a service to the community. By conducting research, the knowledge and evidence-based findings related to specific populations in need further contribute to the professional community. Finally, the chapter examines how to be successful in grant writing.

With the increase in health care social workers engaging with patients as part of a collaborative team, documentation may also require coordination of other medical and lay individuals serving on the team. Social workers who work in health care settings realize the importance of accurate documentation and record keeping because they have been forced to become skilled in identifying and responding to the needs of the patients and their families. Whether a social worker is involved in indirect health care practice (focusing on health care policy and advocacy or health care administration) or direct practice (involving health-related assessment, intervention, prevention, and alleviation of negative situations), accurate and comprehensive documentation skills remain essential for quality intervention. Accurate record keeping in the health care environment is central to the concept of identifying treatment goals and measuring objectives as part of evidence-based practice. Accurate record keeping is essential for quality social work practice.

Some counselor education programs have a Clinical Mental Health Counseling track and either a School Counseling or Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling (MFCC) track. Other programs may have all three and a nonclinical track from which students may choose. This chapter focuses on courses taught in the MFCC track. It summarizes some of the most helpful information to consider when prepping to teach a course in this track. These courses focus on helping students gain the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to work with couples and families and introduce students to the theory, philosophy, and methods of systems work. The chapter focuses discussions and activities on topics such as systems theories, evidence-based interventions, contextualizing families, and cultural factors relevant to marriage. Courses in the MFCC track take a considerable amount of time to prepare. Like marriage, family, and child counseling, these courses are a spider web of processes.

Treatment outcome studies in the discipline of social work, psychology, and psychiatry have demonstrated the efficacy and effectiveness of differential psychotherapy approaches in addressing the psychological needs of individuals across the life span. Throughout the last four decades, scholar-practitioners have engaged in a professional quest to find evidence to support the efficacy of psychotherapy in ameliorating an array of clinical symptoms and levels of distress in identified patient or client populations. This chapter presents an overview of evidence-based practice with ethnically diverse clients. Predicated on an integrative understanding of evidence-based practice and cultural competency in mental health and clinical care settings, and on the importance of intersectionality as the guiding theoretical perspective for effective delivery of patient-centered services, it presents selected conceptual frameworks for the cultural adaptation of evidence-based treatments. The chapter highlights culturally adapted cognitive-behavioral therapy as an exemplar of evidence-based treatment for ethnic and racially diverse patient populations.

Suicide is a problem that knows no cultural boundaries. As the minority population in the United States continues to grow, it is essential for health and mental health providers to develop culturally relevant prevention and intervention efforts to address these at-risk populations. Risk and protective factors vary across culture and ethnicities, as do attitudes and perspectives regarding suicide acceptability. Intervention and prevention efforts should be guided by culturally relevant risk and protective factors for suicide and an understanding of attitudes toward suicide among the target population. This chapter explores the diverse demographic and ethnic profile of suicidal behavior in the United States and reviews known psychosocial risk factors for suicide within these cultural groups. It reviews the critical factors related to culture to be considered when conducting a risk assessment with suicidal clients. The chapter explores the treatment of suicidal individuals from culturally competent and evidence-based practice perspectives.

Individuals of diverse cultures suffer from substance use disorders (SUDs). These individuals and the families that love them face devastating adverse consequences. It is crucial for research to continue to develop best practices and policies that address the public health emergency that exists across all socioeconomic levels, races, genders, cultures, and so on. This chapter highlights the importance of addressing the current public health crisis of substance abuse and SUDs with various population groups from different cultural backgrounds. It emphasizes client-centered practice from an intersectional perspective with a special focus on families. Health practices and policies that decrease disparities in healthcare are important to the well-being of marginalized groups from different cultures. Culture and its impact on perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors of different groups are critical to developing evidence-based treatments for substance abuse that are efficacious.