The Center for Evidence Based Practices (CEBP) is a recognized Center of Excellence that offers technical assistance in the form of skills training, clinical and administrative consultation, and program evaluation for service innovations that improve quality of life and other outcomes for people with mental illness or co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders.
CEBP helps behavioral healthcare organizations implement and sustain evidence-based practices across multiple counties and 60 organizations throughout Ohio, 36 states, and five countries throughout their 21 years in operation. Veterans Affairs medical centers in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, as well as the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), have sought technical assistance from CEBP. Currently active in 15 states, from California to Maryland to Georgia, they serve as Ohio’s Center of Excellence for several best practices.
CEBP was established in 1999 by Lenore Kola, PhD, now retired from the Mandel School, and Robert Ronis, MD, of CWRU's Department of Psychiatry. Patrick Boyle, PhD, also now retired from the Mandel School, served as implementation services director and later consulting director. In July 2020, as all associated Mandel School faculty approached retirement, CEBP searched for a new administrative home. It found one, within the Begun Center alongside two other technical assistance Centers of Excellence, and Ric Kruszynski, currently serves as director.