Filling potholes on the implementation highway: Evaluating the implementation of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy in Los Angeles County

In October 2012, first 5 LA funded a unique collaboration between Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) and UC Davis PCIT Training Center (UCD PCIT) to train county-contracted agencies to provide Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). This $20 million dollar, 5-year grant represented the largest implementation effort of an empirically based treatment to date. The purpose of this paper was to describe the first 2 years of the implementation process of this project, beginning with project start up and pre-implementation phases, and to present agency training and client performance outcomes from our first year of training. Results presented in this evaluation suggest that it is possible to train LA County providers in PCIT, and that PCIT is an effective intervention for DMH-contracted providers in LA County. This evaluation also discusses challenges to successful implementation. Barriers to progress included unanticipated delays building county infrastructure, trainee attrition, and insufficient client referrals. We discuss the results of the current implementation with respect to theory, research, and others’ training models, with the aim of evaluating and prioritizing different implementation drivers, noting the ongoing competition between knowing what to do and the need for action.