Salena King, Ph.D.

Where Good Intentions Begin

Organizations across healthcare, education, public health, research, and social services share a common goal: to make a meaningful difference in people's lives. We often communicate progress by reporting how many people participated, how many professionals were trained, how many resources were distributed, or how many communities were reached. These measures are valuable. They demonstrate effort, reach, and organizational commitment. They are also the beginning of a larger story.

To understand the full influence of an initiative, we must look beyond what was delivered and examine what became meaningfully different for the people involved. Did participants gain knowledge they could use? Did professionals change their practices? Did services become more accessible? Did families feel more supported? Were improvements sustained over time?

Impact becomes most meaningful when communities can recognize and experience the difference.

Beyond Counting What We Did

Activities and outputs provide essential information about whether a program was implemented as planned. They help organizations monitor progress, meet reporting requirements, and communicate the scope of their work. However, activities alone may not tell us how an initiative was received or whether it created its intended outcomes.

For example, an organization may train hundreds of professionals in an evidence-based practice. The number trained demonstrates impressive reach. To understand the broader impact, we might also ask whether participants understood the material, believed it was relevant to their work, had opportunities to apply it, and received organizational support for continued implementation.

We could then examine whether the training contributed to changes in professional practice and whether those changes improved the experiences of the individuals and families being served.

This expanded approach does not diminish the value of the original activity. Instead, it helps organizations tell a more complete and compelling story about their work.

Bridging the Gap Between Knowing and Doing

We have access to an extraordinary amount of research and evidence about how to support individuals, families, and communities. Yet moving knowledge into practice is rarely a simple or linear process.

An intervention that is successful in one setting may require adaptation before it can work in another. Professionals may encounter limited staffing, high caseloads, competing responsibilities, technology challenges, or policies that affect their ability to adopt a new practice. Community members may experience transportation barriers, childcare limitations, scheduling conflicts, or uncertainty about whether a service will understand and respect their needs.

These contextual factors do not necessarily indicate that a program or organization has failed. They provide important information about what people need for implementation to succeed.

Implementation science helps us study how programs and practices are adopted, delivered, and sustained in real-world settings. Translational science helps ensure that knowledge moves beyond professional and academic spaces so that it can be understood and used by the people it is intended to benefit.

Together, these fields encourage us to ask not only whether an intervention works, but also how, where, for whom, and under what conditions it can work most effectively.

Designing With Communities, Not Simply for Them

Community engagement is especially powerful when it begins before a program or initiative is fully developed.

Researchers and organizational leaders bring valuable scientific, technical, and administrative knowledge to the design process. Community members, families, and frontline professionals contribute another essential form of expertise: an understanding of how needs, services, and systems are experienced in everyday life.

People closest to an issue may identify barriers that are not visible in administrative data or existing research. They may know why previous initiatives struggled to gain trust, which forms of communication are most effective, and what types of support would be most practical.

Including this knowledge early can strengthen research questions, improve recruitment and retention, increase the relevance of services, and help organizations define outcomes that are meaningful to the community.

Lived experience does not replace scientific evidence. Rather, it provides context that can strengthen the interpretation and application of evidence.

Quantitative data can help identify what is happening and how frequently it occurs. Qualitative inquiry can help us understand how people experience it, why it occurs, and what it means within a particular context. Community partnership can help determine what should happen next.

When these forms of knowledge are brought together, organizations are better positioned to develop solutions that are evidence-informed, contextually appropriate, and responsive to the people they serve.

Four Ways Translational Leaders Create Change

Translational leadership connects knowledge with action. It requires leaders to move between research, practice, organizational systems, and community experience.

Four practices are especially important for leaders seeking to create meaningful and sustainable impact.

Begin With Listening

Listening is most influential when it occurs early enough to shape the direction of the work.

Engaging community members, frontline professionals, families, and people with lived experience during the design process can reveal priorities and considerations that may otherwise be overlooked. It also creates opportunities for organizations to explain how community input influenced the final approach.

Meaningful engagement does not require leaders to incorporate every recommendation. It does require transparency, respect, and a genuine willingness to reconsider assumptions.

When people can see their perspectives reflected in a program, policy, or research question, they are more likely to view themselves as partners in the work.

Make Knowledge Usable

Research should be understandable and useful to people beyond academic and professional circles.

A peer-reviewed publication, policy brief, professional training, community presentation, and infographic may all communicate the same evidence differently. Each format can be valuable when it is designed with its audience and purpose in mind.

Making information accessible does not mean sacrificing accuracy or intellectual depth. It means communicating knowledge in a way that allows people to understand its relevance and determine how it can be applied.

The purpose of translation is not merely to simplify information. It is to make knowledge usable.

Create the Conditions for Change

Programs often depend on individuals changing their behavior. Professionals may be asked to adopt a new practice, families may be encouraged to participate in services, and organizations may expect teams to follow a new process.

Individual motivation matters, but the surrounding environment also shapes behavior.

A professional may value a new practice but need additional time, supervision, technology, or leadership support to implement it. A parent may want to participate in a program but face scheduling, transportation, or childcare barriers. A patient may need additional information or relationship-building before feeling comfortable engaging with a service.

Translational leaders consider both individual and systemic factors. They examine workflows, resources, communication, organizational culture, and community context to determine what conditions will support the desired change.

This perspective helps move the conversation from asking why someone did not participate or implement a practice to asking what support would make participation or implementation more possible.

Measure What People Experience

Organizations must measure outcomes required by funders, accrediting bodies, and reporting systems. These indicators are essential for accountability and sustainability. There is also value in asking communities what successful change would look and feel like to them.

A program may increase referrals, but families may define success as receiving services within a reasonable period. A healthcare organization may adopt a patient-centered policy, while patients may define success as feeling informed and included in decisions. A school may provide a new resource, while students may define success as feeling safer and better supported.

Evaluation becomes more meaningful when organizational measures and community-defined outcomes are considered together.

In addition to asking whether an activity occurred, we can examine whether knowledge increased, behavior changed, access improved, trust developed, services became more responsive, and positive outcomes were sustained.

Influence Is What Becomes Possible

Influence is often associated with visibility, recognition, leadership titles, or access to decision-makers. These forms of influence can create important opportunities, but they represent only part of the picture.

Influence is also present when research becomes a resource that families can use. It occurs when a community member's experience informs an organizational decision, when a professional receives the support needed to improve practice, or when a program becomes more responsive because leaders listened and adapted.

True influence is not measured only by how many people know our names. It can also be seen in the conditions we help create for others to succeed.

As a researcher, educator, and implementation and translational science professional, I have learned that some of the most important work happens between evidence and action. It occurs through building trust, translating knowledge, examining context, and ensuring that community perspectives inform decision-making.

This work is often collaborative and incremental. It requires patience, reflection, and a willingness to learn throughout the process. Although it may not always be highly visible, it is essential for turning promising ideas into meaningful and sustainable improvements.

When Intention Becomes Impact

People who enter helping professions generally share a sincere desire to improve lives. Researchers want their findings to contribute to knowledge. Healthcare professionals want patients to heal. Educators want students to succeed. Community organizations want individuals and families to flourish.

Translational leadership helps connect these intentions with the conditions necessary for meaningful change.

This requires curiosity, accountability, humility, and openness to feedback. It also requires an understanding that an initiative may be valuable while still having room to grow.

• Success can mean launching an initiative and ensuring that people can access it.
• Success can mean training professionals and providing the support they need to apply what they learned.
• Success can mean publishing evidence and translating it into information that others can understand and use.
• Success can mean inviting community members to participate and ensuring that their perspectives meaningfully shape the work.

Ultimately, impact is not defined only by what an organization provides. It is also reflected in what becomes meaningfully different in people's lives.

When communities can recognize, experience, and help sustain that difference, we move beyond good intentions and begin creating real impact.