What is a Practice Profile?

This Practice Profile resource is part of the CBH Knowledge Center. It includes a brief, interactive tutorial; a practice profile library of four examples of behavioral health service programs for youth and families; and background materials that describe the practice profile process for operationalizing innovations introduced in 2016 by the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN).

Practice profiles are a tool to help drill down an overall concept (e.g., effective communication) into the specific skills and activities that are essential for a program’s core components to be in place. Different examples can help to illustrate how programs are differentiating among ideal, acceptable, developmental, and unacceptable variations of the program’s essential components, which are important for training, coaching, and using data that support implementing a program as intended.