Commentary: A pathway forward for implementation science in the search to accelerate the delivery of effective mental health treatment and services for youth: reflections on Williams and Beidas (2019)

Abstract

Over the past several decades, implementation science has emerged as a promising new field designed to reduce the gap between research and practice. One population that has not fully benefitted from recent efforts to implement evidence-based mental health treatment and services are children and adolescents. In the review by Williams and Beidas, the authors provide a thoughtful discussion on where the implementation science field has previously been within the area of child psychology and psychiatry, identified the scientific limitations of prior phases or 'waves' in the historical development of implementation science, and recommend where the field needs to go - by underscoring the importance of developing and testing multilevel, integrated causal theories and mechanism-based approaches. This commentary draws attention to the importance of the perspectives and recommendations proposed in this review, which offer the potential to generate new advances in the field of implementation science that will ultimately, improve mental health care and clinical outcomes for youth.