Dr. Rebecca Lengnick-Hall is an organizational social work researcher who wants to promote and represent the social work perspective in the implementation science and management fields. She received her PhD from the University of Southern California and has master’s level training in social work and public affairs.

Social workers are often tasked with implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs), yet they must do so under challenging and strained working conditions. Rebecca wants to create organizational environments that support EBP implementation and set clinicians up to succeed.

She is specifically interested in how organizations must adapt—in both planned an unplanned ways— when a new intervention is introduced. While the dominant perspective is that organizations are the context for implementation, Rebecca believes that organizations are dynamic implementation actors.

Her dissertation, funded by a two-year Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, qualitatively explored how 17 organizations in eight service systems adapted over the course of SafeCare implementation.