Foreword

Innovation is a key to quality improvement in all organizations-and essential to the health and vitality of community-based treatment organizations that serve as the foundation of our Nation's substance abuse treatment system. Through the Practice Improvement Collaboratives (PIC) program, the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) supports State and local level initiatives to ensure that science-based practice innovations are an integral component of community-based substance abuse treatment. The PIC program seeks to address the needs identified by the substance abuse field in the National Treatment Plan, i.e., to provide treatment that is based on scientific evidence; promote collaboration among service providers, academic institutions, researchers, and other relevant stakeholders; and establish incentives and assistance in applying new standards and treatment methods (Changing the Conversation, 2000).

Currently, 14 PICs throughout the country are demonstrating how community-based treatment organizations can integrate evidence-based clinical and service delivery practices into their systems of care in a way that is practical, feasible, and responsive to the needs of the client populations they serve. PIC projects are committed to developing treatment networks that are committed to practice improvement and based on the shared expertise of local treatment system stakeholders, i.e., practitioners, researchers, policymakers, educators, and members of the recovery community.

The PIC grantees profiled in this document represent a diverse group of local and statewide collaboratives that are in the early stages of project implementation. The brief project summaries identify major stakeholders and project activities of each PIC. Since PIC sites engage in a continuous process of stakeholder and project development, this information is subject to change. To obtain more detailed information on each PIC, please log on to the individual project websites that are listed in the document.