Assessing opportunities to partner and co-design research: An example from behavioral health implementation science and health services research

<jats:p>To meet persistent population-level behavioral health needs in the United States, health services researchers need to facilitate and strengthen their collaborative partnerships and co-design innovative research that evaluates coordinated intervention combinations, which are often delivered by a wide range of service providers. This paper describes the elements of our partnership development, including the participatory and co-design approaches, to deliver a community-centered intervention that coupled family advocate services with the Strengthening Families Program to reduce substance use and improve positive family-level outcomes across New Jersey communities. We identified flexibility, respect for professional expertise, transparent communications, and shared research goals as essential discussion topics to assess organizational capacity and readiness to engage in this research study during the project co-design, development, and implementation phases. Our team regularly revisited our expectations around each of these elements, which promoted trust in the partnership; clarified scientific methodologies and terminology; and created opportunities to reaffirm the commitment to and benefits of the research for each partner institution. We hope that future research teams consider the topics we identified as possible milestones to integrate into their roadmaps for building research partnerships designed to scale and coordinate delivery of available interventions.</jats:p>