Denver sits at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. From the middle of the city it’s hard to see this bigger picture. Just a glimpse here and there.

In the basement of the Adams Mark Hotel, the Blueprint programs and questions about standards are the focus of attention: implementation, fidelity, evaluation and more. Here, too, it’s hard to keep the bigger picture in view.

The vista is not quite as attractive as the Rockies, nor – let’s hope – as intransigent.

Everyone in the basement believes in evidence based practice. Most people in children's services do not.

For the most part, evidence based interventions are an add-on to highly variable mainstream services which, in the US, include an absence of universal health care and an education system that often further disadvantages the disadvantaged.

Del Elliott in his address to the conference quoted critics of the evidence based movement. The National Implementation Research Network wrote: “…very little is known about the processes required to effectively implement evidence-based programs on a national scale. Research to support the implementation activities that are being used is even scarcer.”

An unidentified but well respected scientist wrote in Enews: “ I particularly enjoyed your most recent article warning about the potential tyranny of evidence-based practices … I think you underplayed the possibility that an emphasis on such programs can inadvertently undermine rather than enhance school-wide reform efforts … there is virtually no evidence that evidence based practices contribute to overall school effectiveness, as data on such an issue are never gathered.

The tone and the sentiments may be unhelpful, and unnecessary adverbs undermine the case, but, to an extent, the observations are true.