Since March 2007, the federal government has maintained a website to help researchers, evaluators and community practitioners find effective, proven, evidence-based programs that work to both prevent and treat substance abuse.

Now called the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP), the website screens programs for effectiveness.

Since many substance abuse programs that are developed do not work, NREPP acts as a kind of “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” so it is easy to tell the good programs from the bad.

Without NREPP, practitioners who are responsible for adopting and running programs—teachers, superintendents, clinicians, clinical managers—are often too busy or do not have the skills needed to find and then critically evaluate whether a program is evidence-based.

On Dec. 28, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the federal agency that oversees NREPP, prematurely terminated the contract to the organization that runs NREPP, for the “convenience of the government,” which means that the government did not believe the contractor had performed poorly.

Read the full article on the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices by Matthew Chinman and Joie D. Acosta at RAND