PEI Overview

Overview of PEI EBPs, PPs, and CDEs

The Los Angeles County PEI plan is the result of a community-driven planning process that extended over 20 months, with input from over 10,000 individuals and 655 agency- and community-based programs. Another input facet of the planning was that it was data-driven, i.e., the most recent L.A. County statistics relevant to risk factors were utilized.   New as well as expanded programs emphasizing prevention, early intervention, or a combination of both, comprise the PEI plan. Overall, the PEI projects are composed of evidence-based programs (EBPs), promising practices (PPs), community-defined evidence (CDEs) practices, and pilot program be delivered at various sites throughout Los Angeles County at the Service Area and countywide level.

Definitions

  • Evidence-based Practice (EBP): “Evidence-based Practice” means the range of treatment and services of well-documented effectiveness. An evidence-based practice has been, or is being evaluated and meets the following criteria: (1) has some quantitative and qualitative data showing positive outcomes, but does not yet have enough research or replication to support generalized positive outcomes; and (2) has been subject to expert/peer review that has determined that a particular approach or strategy has a significant level of evidence of effectiveness in research literature.
  • Promising Practice (PP): “Promising Practice” means innovations in clinical or administrative practice that respond to critical needs of a particular program, population or system and which seem to produce good outcomes but do not have enough research or replication to support generalized outcomes.
  • Community-defined Evidence (CDE): CDEs are a set of practices that communities have been shown to yield positive results as determined by community consensus over time, and which may or may not have been measured empirically, but have reached a level of acceptance by the community. Only CDE models that targeted PEI priority populations and outcomes were included in the list of PEI practices. To be included on the Department’s list of possible PEI interventions, services had to be sufficiently well articulated to be delivered in a consistent manner and replicated by others, and have some level of demonstrated effectiveness.
  • EBP, PP, and CDE Resource GuideIn 2009 two guides, one focusing on EBPs and PPs and another on CDEs, were developed by the CiMH to support Los Angeles County’s planning efforts for the Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) component of the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA).  These guides were designed to inform the deliberations of the Los Angeles County Service Area PEI Steering Committees, as well as the Countywide Populations Steering Committee, as they identified priorities to be addressed in the county MHSA PEI Plan.  In 2010 the Guides were updated to include additional programs that qualified as CDEs during the reapplication and technical assistance phase in 2009-10 and were combined into one document. Programs contained in the guide cover a range of prevention and early intervention practices relevant to the PEI priority populations in Los Angeles County. Each program entry contains concise descriptions of program elements such as level of scientific evidence supporting the practice, multi-cultural applicability, implementation details, and more.

Evidence-based Practices, Promising Practices, and Community-defined Evidence Practices Resource Guide 2.0 (2010)