Blog post by Maša Davidović and Eleanor McClorey
The Professional Certificate Program in Implementation Practice offered by the Collaborative for Implementation Practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work helps participants to strengthen the competencies required to support and sustain implementation and change efforts over time. The certificate program is designed for leaders, managers, and staff in health and human services who support change efforts. The program includes three courses, each lasting two consecutive days, delivered live via Zoom. This year, two members of the European Implementation Collaborative (EIC) received scholarships to participate in this certificated program: Maša Davidović and Eleanor McClorey.
Maša Davidović is a medical doctor and a research fellow at the University Hospital Bern and the Institute of Primary Health Care (BIHAM), University of Bern, Switzerland. In her current role, she is supporting several research projects, including the BE-SAFE, that aims to implement a complex intervention to support healthcare professionals and patients in reducing the use of benzodiazepines. Her journey in implementation sciences started during her PhD studies at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, where she explored cervical and breast cancers in women living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. She is also a member of the Early Career Implementation Professionals (ECIP) Working Group and was a mentee in the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network (CPCRN) one-year mentorship program.
Eleanor McClorey is a change management and change leadership consultant and coach with a practice background in senior management, community development, and child and family services. She has a Masters in Adult and Community Education and is an accredited group work facilitator and coach. Her consultancy and coaching practice draws on implementation science and complex adaptive systems training and experience to support organisations strengthen evidence informed implementation and leadership. Her appreciation of the complexity of implementation theory-in-practice derives from her experience and learning as Chief Executive of youngballymun in the Prevention and Early Intervention Programme (Ireland 2007-2016). She led a multi-disciplinary team that facilitated the design, implementation and evaluation of a ten year complex community change initiative in Ballymun, Dublin – working with local partners in embedding evidence informed practice in health, early years, primary schools and youth and community settings. Through this work Eleanor was introduced to the field of implementation science at the Global Implementation Conference, Washington, 2011. She has been a lifelong advocate for initiatives to tackle child and family poverty through prevention and early intervention, integrated service provision, and community development and played a key role in setting up Ireland’s Area-Based Childhood programme, now part of the Tusla service framework. Eleanor is a member of the Global Implementation Society and co-facilitated leadership workshops at GIC 2015, 2019 and 2021.
Maša’s experience
My journey in implementation science (ImpSci) began a few years ago. Searching for new challenges, I discovered a semester course on ImpSci at the University of Basel. Since then, I have been building up my skills and knowledge in ImpSci, though I had not yet had the opportunity to practise it. Recently, I started a new position where I will have the chance to contribute to an international complex health intervention study. This certificate program came at the perfect time, providing me with valuable skills that I can apply in the near future.
What I liked most about this program was its structure. It covers various principles and competencies essential for supporting implementation practice, categorised into three domains: a) co-creation and engagement, b) ongoing improvement, and c) sustaining changes (Image 1). Throughout the program, we learned step by step about each competency within these domains. I realised that I had already practised some competencies, such as co-learning (work collaboratively with stakeholders and understanding the system, organisational context, and culture), assessing needs and assets (including valuing the perspectives of multiple stakeholders when identifying needs), and growing and sustaining respectful and trusting relationships with stakeholders. I also identified the competencies I would like to strengthen in the future, such as brokering (identifying siloes with the service system and finding ways to bring stakeholders together across the silos), applying and integrating implementation frameworks, strategies and approaches, building implementation capacities within the teams and stakeholders.
The program offered practical exercises where we could discuss, apply, and evaluate the competencies needed for implementation practice. The plenary and workgroup discussions motivated me to continue exploring these capacities and to test them in real-life settings. It also helped me realise that we can all support implementation efforts by gaining and strengthening these competencies.
Image 1. Metz A, Burke K, Albers B, Louison L, Bartley L. A Practice Guide to Supporting Implementation: What Competencies Do We Need? National Implementation Research Network. 2020
Eleanor’s experience
My journey in implementation science has been ongoing for about fifteen years now. I am specifically interested in the liminal space where evidence on most effective practice meets the constraints and complexities of ourselves and our everyday organisational life. My work centres around the exploration of what might be possible if we bring ourselves – our truths, our facilitation, our problem solving and our relationship building – into the space between the evidence and the reality and reflect together in and on that space.
I have been engaged in implementation informed consultancy work for quite some time and the Practice Certificate was a great opportunity as I saw it to (re) ground my practice in the theory and evidence and to explore implementation practice with colleagues from around the world.
My main interest or motivation embarking on the three modules was
a) to learn more about data and evidence – data gathering and analysis, data informed feedback loops, building an evidence base – in practice contexts and
b) to expand my implementation based reading and reflection guided by the course faculty, participants, and content
The course is a great opportunity for those of us who are practitioners in the field but not affiliated to a research institution to reconnect with the research practice emphasis integral to implementation and continue to develop the data informed decision making dimensions of implementation science in practice.
The course is also an opportunity to refocus purposefully on the principles underpinning one’s practice, the extent to which those principles are visible and operational in practice, the quality of the adaptive context that develops as a container for the work being undertaken and a wide body of reading related to these aspects of implementation practice. A real learning dynamic develops right from the start between course input, small group discussion and personal reflection. I found the content practical and relevant in my work contexts and the literature reference base a resource to continue to draw on and return to.
We are happy to share our experiences so feel free to connect with us if you want to hear more!
Maša Davidović, LinkedIN: www.linkedin.com/in/masa-davidovic
Eleanor McClorey, Email: [email protected]
