Implementing Evidence-Based Practice in Residential Care: How Far Have We Come?

Residential care agencies have been making efforts to provide better quality care through the implementation of evidence-based program models and evidence-based treatments. This article retraces the developments that led to such efforts. It further aims to answer two questions based on the available conceptual and empirical literature: (a) What is the current status on milieu-based program models that were developed for residential care settings with a therapeutic focus? (b) What is known about the implementation of client- or disorder-specific evidence-based treatments into residential care settings? Findings from this review will be integrated to provide recommendations to residential care providers about the integration of evidence-based program models and treatments into their agencies and to point to the challenges that remain for the field.