Response to Lorie

Jake Levy is a young servicemember who is seeking treatment for post-traumatic

stress disorder (Laureate Education, 2013). The social worker in the video (Laureate

Education, 2013) is given excellent guidance by the supervisor to ensure she uses

evidence-based practice and gets to know the unique qualities of her client Jake

before selecting or using interventions in the helping process.

Appropriate Evidence-based Practice for Jake

Cognitive behavioral therapy with a trauma focus (CBT-TF) is a modification of CBT

that helps those diagnosed with PTSD get past the traumatic event by helping them

change the way they think and act through exposure of memories (Kitchiner, 2019).

Military members and veterans are often exposed to such trauma in war, and social

workers must seek specialized training and education to serve this unique

population.

In their review of literature, Watkins et al. (2018) reported cognitive behavioral

therapy with a trauma focus (CBT-TF) as a strongly recommended post-traumatic

stress disorder (PTSD) intervention by both the American Psychological Association

and the Veteran Affairs and Department of Defense. There is continued support of

CBT-TF in a systematic review reported in the Cochrane database (Bisson et al.,

2013) and a systematic review and meta-analysis (Kitchiner, 2019) reported CBT-TF

as a “first-line psychological treatment of PTSD in active duty and ex-serving

personnel” (p. 1).

Since CBT-TF is strongly supported by the military community and in research, this

intervention may be appropriate for Jake once the social work assessment has been

completed. Clients may reject this form of treatment and agencies helping active

duty and prior military may need to have several EBPs available to assist diverse

clients.

Implementation

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

(SAMSHA) (2012), implementation is a process and consists of five stages:

exploration, installation, initial implementation, full implementation, and program

sustainability. Implementing CBT-TF in an agency may be difficult if the agency does

not have buy-in from stakeholders or resources are limited. The social worker will

need to work with her supervisor to determine costs for program materials and

training of licensed practitioners to ensure it fits the agency’s budget. Besides buy-

in from stakeholders, successful implementation of a CBT-TF program will also

require commitment from the client and must fit the community’s needs (SAMSHA,

2012). Is there a growing amount of military servicemembers and veterans that

need support in the community? Is there a donor base that is willing to support this

program financially if agency revenue relies on public funding? The social worker in

the video (Laureate Education, 2013) will need to ensure all five stages of

implementation are taken to ensure a new CBT-TF program at the agency is

successful for all stakeholders, including the clients.

References

Bisson JI, Roberts NP, Andrew M, Cooper R, Lewis C. (2013). Psychological therapies

for chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults. Cochrane Database of

Systematic Reviews 2013, Issue 12. Art. No.:

CD003388.DOI:10.1002/14651858.CD003388.pub4

Kitchiner N., Lewis, C., Roberts N.P., & Bisson, J.I. (2019). Active duty and ex-serving

military personnel with post-traumatic stress disorder treated with psychological

therapies: systematic review and meta-analysis. European Journal of

Psychotraumatology, 10(1). https://doi- org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1080/20008198.2019.1684226 Laureate Education (Producer). (2013). Levy family episode 2 [Video file]. Retrieved

from https://class.waldenu.edu

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2012). A road map to

implementing evidence-based programs. Retrieved

from http://web.archive.org/web/20151010063916/http://www.nrepp.samhsa.gov/Courses/Implementa tions/resources/imp_course.pdf Watkins, L. E., Sprang, K. R., & Rothbaum, B. O. (2018). Treating PTSD: A review of

evidence-based psychotherapy interventions. Frontiers In Behavioral Neuroscience,

12. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00258