Programs Don’t Implement Themselves: Giving Voice to Teachers’ Experiences with Prevention

In recent years, growing pressures for accountability and effectiveness have fueled a push for evidence-based practice in education. In many instances, evidence-based practice has been operationalized as evidence-based programming, especially with respect to school-based prevention. Although teachers frequently implement prevention programs in schools, we know very little about their experiences with implementation. The purpose of this phenomenological interview study, therefore, was to explore the experiences of teachers with respect to implementing evidence-based prevention programs. Very few teachers in this study were involved in the decision to adopt an evidence-based prevention program at their school, yet most teachers appreciated having such a program. They implemented their program flexibly, for a variety of reasons, and viewed this flexibility to be inextricably linked to positive outcomes for students. The implementation experience, overall, influenced teachers both personally and professionally, in several positive ways. Ultimately, teacher practice was shaped by teachers’ experiences with an evidence-based prevention program, rather than forced to accommodate such a program. For teachers in this study, the phenomenon of implementing an evidence-based classroom prevention program was more about encountering SEL and integrating it into their teaching practice than it was about the program at all.