ACTION BRIEF IMPROVING THE LINKAGE BETWEEN RESEARCH AND SYSTEM CHANGE: MAKING IT REAL Revised 11/9/09 Beth A. Stroul, Craig Anne Heflinger, Margarita Alegria, Elaine Slaton, Elizabeth Farmer, Virginia Trotter Betts, Frieda Hopkins Outlaw, Darcy Gruttadaro At the September, 2009 meeting on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services: Issues and Solutions, a work group discussed the status of linkages between the research and system change communities in the children’s mental health field. The “system change” community was defined as policy and service system leaders, service providers, service system and applied researchers, families, youth, and advocates. The group’s deliberations were based on the premise that the relationship between research and system change has been tenuous at best, and that significant improvements in this relationship are essential to ensure that research will better inform policy and practice in the future. The work group was comprised of researchers, policy makers, system change leaders, and family advocates who all agreed on the vital importance of this endeavor. What is the Problem? Exploration of the problem at this meeting focused on the “disconnect” between research and the real world of policy, service systems, and practice. Policy makers contended that research has little focus on the pressing problems and issues of the day – the “imperatives of the moment” – that are relevant to policy and system leaders. They argued that research results typically are not disseminated to policy and system leaders, and that when findings are disseminated, they are not translated into in a policy‐relevant form that is useful to the system change audience. As a result, research results generally have little impact on system change. 1 Not for Distribution - Prepared for CAMHS conference