Lisa Saldana

Senior Research Scientist

Biography

Dr. Saldana is currently the principal investigator of a number of federally-funded projects related to implementation in child serving systems. Building on her previous work with the Stages of Implementation Completion (SIC) ®, she and the SIC team are extending the SIC into the Sustainment Phase of the implementation process. Moreover, they are conducting a randomized trial of the SIC-Coaching strategy as a method for integrating implementation fidelity with intervention fidelity to increase rates of successful implementation among adolescent substance use treatment EBPs. Lisa and the SIC team have collaborated with a number of EBP developers in different service sectors, serving different populations to operationalize and monitor real-world implementation efforts. Similarly, the SIC team has developed the Cost of Implementing New Strategies (COINS) tool for assessing implementation costs across the three phases of implementation.

Lisa also is the primary developer and evaluator the R3 Supervisor Strategy. Developed in collaboration with child welfare leaders, R3 aims to bring evidence-based strategies into child welfare worker-family interactions. The model has been implemented and evaluated across both state and county driven child welfare systems. R3 has received strong endorsement from supervisors trained in the model and consistently has produced positive organizational change.

Lisa is the developer of the Families Actively Improving Relationships (FAIR) model, an integrative intervention for families referred to the child welfare system for parental substance abuse. FAIR integrates evidence-based techniques targeting four key treatment components including parental substance use, maladaptive parenting, and mental health symptoms as well as their correlated contextual problems such as housing and employment. Families referred to FAIR receive services in their natural environments (e.g., home, school, court) and receive incentives related to healthy households for meeting individualized treatment goals. Currently, Lisa and her team are implementing FAIR, and its adaptation PRE-FAIR, in five Oregon counties, as part of a NIDA-funded HEAL prevention study.