Sustainability
After the intensity of establishing a fully implemented evidence-based program implementation in a new community (often requiring 2 to 4 years), the implementation site needs to be sustained in subsequent years.
Skilled practitioners and other well trained staff leave and must be replaced with other skilled practitioners and well-trained staff. Leaders, funding streams, and program requirements change. New social problems arise; partners come and go. External systems change with some frequency, political alliances are only temporary, and champions move on to other causes.
Through it all the implementation site leaders and staff, together with the community, must be aware of the shifting ecology of influence factors and adjust without losing the functional components of the evidence-based program or dying due to a lack of essential financial and political support.
The goal during this stage is the long-term survival and continued effectiveness of the implementation site in the context of a changing world.
