Creating Sustainable Change: Implementation Science Applied

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Across industries, change efforts are widely unsuccessful. In this session, Dr. Alexandra Walker explores the concept of implementation science to examine the factors to look into so organizations achieve the desired outcomes of changes implemented.
Dr. Alexandra Walker has more than 20 years of experience in corrections, reentry reform, and education. She has worked in both juvenile and adult settings and spearheaded multiple implementation projects including with the Colorado Parole Board. She currently serves as Director of Community Relations and Strategy at the Alliance for Community and Justice Innovation (ACJI).
Points she covered in this discussion include:
An overview of the work and services provided by the Alliance for Community and Justice Innovation.
What implementation science is, and how this helps facilitate change that produces the intended results.
How change efforts across industries often fail due to the inherent human resistance to change.
The traditional implementation framework that rarely addresses what happens between the identified problem and the desired outcomes.
The common two-step methods to traditional implementation and how these typically lead to failure.
The gaps that the criminal justice system face which complicate the application of research and practice improvements.
Service to science gap: The challenges with applying research to practice.
Implementation gap: How time, density, and quality impacts change implementation and its results.
Leadership and culture gap: Where past experiences can determine the support of the people to the initiatives.
The five dynamics of effective implementation
Leadership
The reality of leadership highlighting the value of having an army of champions to assist leadership.
The grit and patience required of leaders when implementing changes.
How leaders can create alignment to promote the desired change.
People
The inherent human discomfort and resistance to change.
How recognizing the golden thread across the employee lifespan can help when change is required and how to tap people, particularly new hires, as catalysts for change.
Data
The common data captured by organizations and the problems posed by too little or too much data.
The tendency to determine initiatives as a failure without fully implementing it.
The importance of gauging data fidelity when implementing change to fully evaluate the effectiveness of the initiative.
Culture
The variables that make up organizational culture and how emotional contagion greatly influences it.
Pointers when it comes to changing organizational culture.
Feedback
Leveraging feedback to assess whether changes are fully integrated into day-to-day work operations.
The value of creating an implementation team as the mechanism to review what was implemented and gather feedback to identify barriers, engage staff, and fortify the changes.