This presentation highlights three issue papers that will be completed in the summer of 2012 as part of a research project. This project was issued by The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to Child Trends to assess the state of the field and examine knowledge gaps around (1) the replication and scale-up of evidence-based programs (EBPs) for children and youth and (2) the use of evidence-informed and innovative strategies. This work was initially developed to inform the signature evidence-based initiatives in HHS, including home visiting, teen pregnancy prevention, and the permanency innovations initiative to reduce long term foster care. Recognizing that the emphasis on evidence represents only an initial step toward ensuring that programs that have demonstrated positive impacts on critical outcomes such as child maltreatment, school readiness, teen pregnancy, and delinquency are adequately funded and brought to scale, this series of issue papers draws attention to the factors that are essential to program success. In collaboration with several experts, Child Trends and ASPE have produced an issue paper series that provides practitioners and policymakers guidance on ensuring effective implementation of programs for children and youth. The first paper, The Importance of Quality Implementation for Research, Practice and Policy, stresses the importance of program implementation, emphasizing the need to support strong program implementation as a necessary companion to support evidence-based programs. This paper also highlights the cost of failing to implement programs with high quality, citing evidence from reviews that have isolated the effects of poor program implementation. The second paper, Core Intervention Components: Identifying and Operationalizing "What Works", focuses on the range of strategies for identifying a program’s core components or active ingredients. It addresses how it is important to identify core components; when core components should be identified; and what strategies work and do not work when identifying the core components. The final paper, To Boldly Go, Where None Have Gone Before: Tools for Development, Adaptation, and Innovation to Address Human Behavioral Problems, identifies the kinds of evidence that can be used to develop new program and make adaptations to existing programs. It addresses the kinds of evidence can be used to develop innovative programs and make adaptations to existing programs; and, in the ways existing evidence can be used to develop innovative programs or adapt an evidence-based program.