Blueprints Advisory Board Member Lecture: “Scaling up Evidence-Based Programs in Community Settings”

Velma McBride Murry, Vanderbilt University

Title: Scaling up Evidence-Based Programs in Community Settings: Balancing Fidelity and Real-World “Adjustments” to Model Implementation

Abstract: Program developers must provide additional information to help facilitators make appropriate modifications to cultural contexts and social trends. However, modifications cannot interfere with effectiveness. In this talk, Dr. McBride Murry will discuss how to maintain fidelity to theoretical foundations and core components while modifying experimentally-proven programs to meet participants’ needs.

Bio: Dr. McBride Murry has conducted research on African-American parents and youth for over a decade and identified proximal, malleable protective factors that deter emotional problems and risk engagement in youth. Using this information, she designed and implemented a randomized control trial (RCT), family-based preventive intervention program, the Strong African American Families Program, that has demonstrated efficacy in dissuading youth from engaging in health compromising behaviors. More recently, she completed a 3-arm RCT of the Pathways for African American Success program, which is the first developmentally and culturally tailored technology-based program developed specifically for African American families. Professor McBride Murry’s overarching goal is to disseminate her experimentally proven programs (EPPs) for uptake in community-based organizations, schools, primary health care settings and faith-based organizations, and examine their efficacy in real-world settings.

At CU Boulder, Dr. McBride Murry serves on the Advisory Board of Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development, a globally-recognized online registry of EPPs.