Response

Respond to at least one colleagues who recommended a different screening/assessment practice and provide feedback.

According to Hunsley & Mash, the challenge of identifying which standardized instruments to use in the public sector is complicated by the sheer volume of assessment methods, assessment purposes and processes to treatment (2005). This is where evidence based assessments and evidence based interventions help reduce the burden of having to identify the best practices to implement. Evidence based assessment and interventions are not the fix all for every situation but they can be adjusted upon need and still remain efficient.

Assessments are not meant to add unnecessarily to the paperwork burden for providers and agencies. A piece of evidence-based assessments and practices, are the benefits in not only training professionals to use/implement but the cost reduction of implementing them, the time and resource requirements. This becomes of particular importance when working with populations where free and/or low cost treatment is important. Working with our populations, assessments and treatment interventions must be brief, free or low cost, supported said populations specifically, ethnic minority and low socioeconomic status individuals.

In the case where utilizing an approach like Perlman’s problem solving assessment or even the Cognitive Behavior Assessment where feelings, thoughts and emotions are taken into account to determine and identify maladaptive behaviors, it is easier to implement an evidence based intervention to address/correct the issue.

References:

Beidas, R. S., Stewart, R. E., Walsh, L., Lucas, S., Downey, M. M., Jackson, K., Fernandez, T., & Mandell, D. S. (2015). Free, brief, and validated: Standardized instruments for low-resource mental health settings. Cognitive and behavioral practice, 22(1), 5–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpra.2014.02.002