A mixed-methods study to understand the impact of practitioner and organizational factors on fidelity of a child maltreatment prevention intervention in community-based settings

Abstract

It has been well-documented that the degree to which interventions are implemented with fidelity in typical service settings has varied. Frequently, interventions are developed and tested in highly controlled or early adopter settings. Less attention has been given to what implementation looks like in usual care, and which factors promote practitioners' ability to implement with fidelity. Individuals and organizations implementing interventions in the real world receive varying levels of external supports and may apply a new intervention unaided. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore factors that support implementation as intended in local community agencies. In the quantitative phase of this study, 32 case planners implementing Family Connections (FC), a child maltreatment preventive intervention, completed a survey about their perceptions of practitioner and organizational factors related to fidelity. The survey data were connected to case-level fidelity scores to understand the relationship between perceptions and fidelity. The qualitative phase of this study involved further exploration with nine case planner interviews and two separate focus groups with supervisors and agency leadership. The results of this study suggest that supervision is a key contributor to a practitioner's ability to implement an intervention in usual care. The quantitative and qualitative results suggest supervision, including supervisors' perseverance, proactiveness, knowledge, availability, and skill reinforcement are important components of enhancing a practitioners' ability to learn and use FC. The quantitative results suggest that the level of education was positively associated with fidelity and perceptions of the intervention's limitations may be negatively related to implementation. Additional components that influence implementation for future research emerged from the qualitative phase related to system expectations and policies, individual practitioner attributes, and characteristics of the intervention.

Plain language abstract: This mixed-methods study sought to understand the impact of practitioner and organizational factors on fidelity of a child maltreatment prevention intervention in community-based settings. The study first asked case planners about their perceptions of practitioner and organizational factors related to fidelity through an online survey. This survey was connected to case-level fidelity scores to understand the relationship between perceptions and fidelity. The qualitative phase of this study involved further exploration with nine case planner interviews and two separate focus groups with supervisors and agency leadership. The results of this study suggest that supervision is a key contributor to a practitioner's ability to implement a maltreatment prevention intervention. Both methods of the study suggest that various aspects of supervision, including supervisors' perseverance, proactiveness, knowledge, availability, and skill reinforcement are important components of enhancing a practitioner's ability to learn and use the intervention. Additional components that influence the implementation for future research emerged from the qualitative phase related to system expectations and policies, individual practitioner attributes, and characteristics of the intervention.

Keywords: Intervention fidelity; child maltreatment prevention intervention; implementation practice; relational strategies; supervision; technical strategies.