David Bernstein, director of the Human Services Department’s newly renamed Center for Effective Interventions (formerly the MST Support Services Office), has been asked by Rep. Tom Plant, chair of the legislature's Joint Budget Committee, to participate in the Colorado Innovations Fund, after Bernstein made a presentation to the JBC on evidence-based practice in the mental health field.

The Colorado Innovations Fund will solicit ideas for programs that could demonstrate cost savings from agencies and communities. Bernstein agreed to participate, with the caveat that garnering “input from impacted constituencies would be important.”

In his PowerPoint presentation to the JBC last week, Bernstein recommended that state funders “construct a framework and timetable by which they fund only programs that can demonstrate their long-term positive impact by acceptable standards of evaluation.” He cited Oregon as an example of a state that has hammered out how it defines evidence-based practice, evaluates programs and is phasing in higher percentages of evidence-based interventions into its state-funded addiction and mental-health services portfolio.

The mission of the Center for Effective Interventions at Metro State is to promote evidence-based therapeutic services for families, children and youth.

“The state’s been given a cautious ‘yellow light’ for spending with regard to the vote on Referendum C,” Bernstein said. As a way to prove accountability, “we need to codify more evidence-based practice.”