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Should Social Work Become More Scientific?

  • Research

Social work is historically and inherently based in clinical practice.

From the settlement houses of the late 1800s to the therapeutic treatments offered to veterans of the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the profession has focused on providing services to the most vulnerable individuals in society.

In recent decades, however, scholars have sought to bring a decidedly more scientific approach to social work by emphasizing evidence-based interventions shown to be effective in research studies, an effort that has been embraced by some but challenged by others.

“The use of evidence-based practices has an interesting history in the field of social work,” said Lawrence Palinkas, who holds the Frances L. and Albert G. Feldman Endowed Professorship in Social Policy and Health at the USC School of Social Work. “While many have embraced the idea as a way of providing better quality services to the communities we serve, there have been a number of individuals who are critical of evidence-based practice for various reasons.”

In a recently published book, Palinkas and Haluk Soydan, professor, associate dean of research, and director of the school’s Hamovitch Center for Science in the Human Services, outlined the issues and challenges of evidence-based practice in social work.

Addressing misconceptions

 

Ensuring that social services or treatments provided to individuals don’t do more harm than good is a critical underpinning of the profession and one that benefits from more rigorous research. However, concerns about adopting a dogmatic perspective toward social work, issues related to implementing interventions as they were intended and tested, and general discomfort with the perceived rigidity of evidence-based practice has presented a major barrier to its wide acceptance.

 

“Clinicians may feel that not everything in a particular practice is relevant to their clients’ needs or is consistent with their own practice philosophies,” Palinkas said.

In Evidence-based Practice in Social Work: Development of a New Professional Culture, Soydan and Palinkas sought to dispel misconceptions about evidence-based practice, identify ways for social work practitioners to become more familiar with the concept, highlight the nature of evidence supporting certain interventions, and offer strategies to integrate evidence-based practices with existing clinical approaches, practitioner expertise, and client preferences.

Designed with social work students and clinicians in mind, the book describes the relevance of evidence-based practice to social work, relevant controversies and criticisms, and issues related to cultural diversity and adaptation of evidence-based interventions.

“Much of what the book covers will be familiar to researchers,” Palinkas said. “But we also address the issue of how researchers can communicate their findings to practitioners in a way that is meaningful, respectful, and capable of greater flexibility.”

A need for collaboration

 

Based on his own experience working with clinicians in the field during research studies, he said researchers should be more responsive to the needs of practitioners and clients to encourage the use of scientifically proven approaches.

 

“People who are skeptical of the value of evidence-based practices often become converts,” he said. “They still look for ways to make it more flexible than perhaps many treatment or intervention developers would like, but I think that’s an inherent part of the process.”

Adaptation is particularly common when translating practices across borders, Palinkas said, an issue he said is becoming even more critical as low- and middle-income countries with limited resources begin embracing interventions from other cultural contexts. Despite the steep initial cost of adopting an evidence-based practice, including the need to take time away from clinical practice to train staff members, these countries will need to adjust interventions to address their own needs and abilities.

“The continual experimentation with these practices—reducing the number of sessions for cognitive behavioral therapy from 12 to four, for example—is an illustration of how translating many of these practices across national borders and with different cultures might provide opportunities for producing more effective and perhaps more cost-effective approaches to the work we do with clients.”

The book also fits well with a recent effort undertaken by leading scholars at the USC School of Social Work and elsewhere to define a science of social work, a process that must take into account the specific context in which social workers deliver services and the value of a scientific approach to a practice-based profession.

“I think this is a useful contribution to that discussion,” Palinkas said. “I’m looking forward to seeing the reaction of practitioners and researchers to the approach to developing a professional culture that we describe in the book.”

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