Our Next Action Steps with Your Vision

Last week I sent you the summary results of our EBP community survey.  Your responses made clear to me the future of the EBP community is bright, and it holds tremendous opportunity for all of us engaged in it.  We have reviewed the data and are using it to help prioritize our planning for the future.  I hope it is helping you plan as well.

Listed below are some of the important actions you will see us take in the immediate future.  There will be more down the road.

First, an important theme you expressed is how we must focus on delivering quality evidence based training and resources, in face of of limited staff and other resources.  Also, many evidence based initiatives can be both cost prohibitive, or not sustainable when initial funding is exhausted.  As a result, we will focus on programs and resources that; 

1. You can train, implement and sustain on-site using in-house capacity, or help you can easily obtain
2. Are largely "open source" in the public domain, easily accessible, and cost little or nothing to acquire, and
3. Provide clear pathways that remove barriers and help you efficiently provide quality services for customers in your care and for employees.  In this way you can avoid costly, resources-consuming efforts that may lack justifiable cost benefits.

Second, you indicated a lack of opportunities to network with other evidence based professionals and you lack funding to do your work.  Thus, we will continue to build out the online community, EBPSociety.org, as much as we can, into a place you can access everything evidence based, including articles, funding information, jobs, eLearning, and much more.  We will work hard to keep content on the site updated with relevant resources you can access anytime, or link you to other resources you can consider.

Third, the issue of technology, data gathering and use, also featured prominently in your responses.  We already do some work in this area and will re-dedicate our efforts to develop technology and software tools resources that are affordable and can be adapted to meet your various needs.  Many organizations will benefit from these initiatives.  The exciting part for me is you can begin with staff and resources you already have!

I encourage you and hope the direction we have set will help us all achieve more for customers in our care and all the staff who do the work.  We appreciate your involvement in what we are doing here at Joyfields Institute and EBP Society.  Thank you very much.

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With Humility and Great Respect,

Sobem Nwoko, President

sobem@joyfields.org

770-409-8780