Reconciling Adaptation and Fidelity: Implications for Scaling Up High Quality Youth Programs.

In the field of prevention science, some consider fidelity to manualized protocols to be a hallmark of successful implementation. A growing number of scholars agree that high-quality implementation should also include some adaptations to local context, particularly as prevention programs are scaled up, in order to strengthen their relevance and increase participant engagement. From this perspective, fidelity and adaptation can both be seen as necessary, albeit mutually exclusive, dimensions of implementation quality.