Penn's Beck Community Initiative

Our Cornerstone Program: The Penn Beck Community Initiative (BCI)
The Penn Beck Community Initiative (Penn BCI) is a nationally recognized, empirically supported, clinical, educational, and research partnership dedicated to putting tangible, evidence-based tools into the hands of mental healthcare providers. We have a nearly 20-year track record of implementing a transdiagnostic, case conceptualization–driven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in a multitude of public mental and behavioral health settings on a local, national, and international scale.

Our approach is defined by three key pillars:

• Implementation Process: We use an empirically-supported approach to ensure long-term success. We begin with a collaborative implementation readiness phase, including proactive planning for sustainability from the outset. We then provide tailored workshops, expert consultation, and certification to help organizations and providers integrate new knowledge. Organizations then follow their individualized sustainability plan, including strategies to address turnover and expansion, to ensure community members have continued access to excellent care.
• Science & Innovation: The Penn BCI is at the forward edge of implementation science. We are actively engaged in federally-funded research to shrink the research-to-practice gap, with a core focus on developing and studying AI-based tools and other technologies to quickly scale access to training, supervision, skill evaluation, and therapy.
• Partnership: The key to our success is a flexible, relational, and trustworthy approach that supports providers in navigating the challenging landscape of mental healthcare to improve the quality of care.

For a full description of the Penn BCI model, please see our publications.