Glossary of Terms

Adherence: The extent to which a practitioner uses prescribed interventions and avoids those that are proscribed. 

Community: A group of people living in a particular area or having characteristics in common (e.g., city, neighborhood, organization, service agency, business, professional association); the larger socio-political-cultural context in which an implementation program is intended to operate.

Competence: The level of skill shown by a practitioner in delivering an intervention (e.g., appropriate responses to contextual factors such as client variables, particular aspects of the presenting problems, client's individual life situation, sensitivity of timing, recognizing opportunities to intervene). 

Core components: This phrase may refer to the most essential and indispensable components of an intervention practice or program ("core intervention components") or the most essential and indispensable components of an implementation practice or program ("core implementation components"). 

Engagement: The ability to attract, win over, get the commitment of, and engage consumers, stakeholders, or collaterals.

Evidence-based practices: Skills, techniques, and strategies that can be used when a practitioner is interacting directly with a consumer.  They are sometimes called core intervention components when used in a broader program context.

Evidence-based programs: Organized, multi-faceted interventions that are designed to serve consumers with complex problems.  Such programs, for example, may seek to integrate social skills training, family counseling, and educational assistance, where needed, in a comprehensive yet individualized manner, based on a clearly articulated theory of change, identification of the active agents of change, and the specification of necessary organizational supports. 

Fidelity: Correspondence between the program as implemented and the program as described.

Implement: The act of accomplishing some aim or executing some order; to put into practical effect; carry out; pursue to a conclusion (Dictionary.com); a set of specific activities designed to put into practice an activity or program of known dimensions.  According to this definition, implementation is purposeful and the activity or program being implemented is described in such a way that independent observers can detect its presence and strength. 

Implementation site: The evidence-based practice or program as it is imbedded in the context of a new host organization (provider organization) and/or in the context of the community; the specific agency that houses, supports, and funds the implementation of a program or practice; also referred to as an intermediary organization (e.g., the purveyors of a program work with the community to develop an intermediary organization that will in turn help to develop, support, and sustain one or more replication programs).

Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle: The well-used plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle (Shewhart, 1924; Deming, 1948; Six-Sigma, 1990) provides a framework for initiating and managing change in a purposeful way:

  • Plan – identify resources and needs, develop goals and policies, plan first steps
  • Do – begin to use the new plan at the practice level
  • Study – analyze practice/system impacts, movements toward/away from goals
  • Act – identify needed policy/practice/system adjustments
  • Cycle – do over and over again to achieve the overall goals

Program: A coherent set of clearly described activities and specified linkages among activities designed to produce a set of desired outcomes.

Prototype: The original or best example(s) of a program or practice (e.g., the prototype program that was the subject of the original research en route to developing an evidence base for its effectiveness and utility).

Purveyor: An individual or group of individuals representing a program or practice who actively work with implementation sites to implement that practice or program with fidelity and good effect.

Recursive: A pattern that repeats; iterative

Replication program: The program that is the result of any attempt to duplicate or reproduce the key aspects of a well-specified program or practice.

Robust: Strong; vigorous; sturdy; ability to recover gracefully; ability to have similar effects in diverse environments.

Synthesis: The combination of separate elements of thought into a whole, as of simple into complex conceptions, individual propositions into systems.