Towards an Evidence-Informed Approach to Clinical Social Work Supervision

This chapter discusses how research evidence may be used to inform clinical social work supervision and explores how an evidence-informed approach may be applied in practice in a scenario. The chapter concludes by encouraging supervisors to be mindful about the evidence that informs their supervisory practice and to ask their supervisees about the evidence that relates to the issues they are presenting in supervision.

Recruiting and Engaging Men as Fathers in Social Work Practice

Evidence in the research literature suggests that men are usually not engaged by social workers, particularly in child welfare and child protection settings. Mothers also tend to become the focus of intervention, even when there is growing evidence that men can take an active and important role in a child's development in addition to providing support to the mother and family. Whilst there have been some promising developments in including men in social work practice internationally, there remains a gap in the research regarding the engagement of men as fathers in Australia. Given the growing relevance of the topic of fathers, the purpose of this chapter is to add to the current knowledge base, to support social work students and practitioners to engage with men in their role as fathers, and to offer an evidence-based practice model that may assist social workers in their work with men as fathers.

Social Work Practice Outcomes

The key issue in all human services is outcome. The authors report on a series of four mixed methods research studies to conclude that good social work can bring about positive measurable differences to inform policy and practice. The first focuses on how effective Western nations have been in reducing Child Abuse Related Deaths (CARD); the second explores a three-year controlled study of a school-based social work service to reduce truancy, delinquency, and school exclusion; the third examines outcomes of “Looked After Children” (LAC); the forth re-evaluates a decade of child homicide assailants to provide evidence of the importance of the child protection-psychiatric interface in benefiting mentally ill parents and improving the psychosocial development and protection of their children. These studies show that social work has a measurable beneficial impact upon the lives of those who had been served and that social work can be cost-effective, that is, self-funding, over time.

Social Work and Youth Justice in a Global Context

Social work in youth justice is directed by international standards based on an implied socio-educative paradigm that conflicts with the dominant criminal justice paradigm in operation in most jurisdictions. This creates global challenges in establishing “child-centred” policy and practice for dealing with young people under the age of 18 years in conflict with the law. Social work practitioners, directed by international imperatives and professional ethics, operate between shifting and often conflicting paradigms. It is essential they are familiar with international obligations and operate as “culture carriers” providing an ongoing challenge to systems of youth justice. This chapter examines these issues and, in the absence of consensus or of a shared paradigm for social work practice across jurisdictions, considers what a socio-educative paradigm for practice might look like.

Conclusion

This chapter gathers together and synthesises the concepts used and developed throughout this book. These themes include the challenges posed for social work as a profession in relation to notions of rationality and scientific research methods when considering what constitutes “evidence” for social work practice. This critique challenges the definition and application of evidence to complex scenarios where there are no easy answers, yet the agency and systems seem to demand them from social workers. In response to these challenges, social work has developed expertise in the use of case study and action research methods, drawing from interpretive and participative epistemologies. Such research studies aim to give resonance to voices hitherto missed, marginalised, or ignored. To redress this marginalisation and to provide much needed balance in what constitutes “evidence,” narratives of service-users and their caregivers have become primary sources of evidence, which are used to guide social work practice.

Child Protection, “Dirty Work,” and Interagency Collaboration

Working in partnership is considered a key mechanism for effective delivery of services to children and families. However, child protection system inquiries in Australia and internationally repeatedly highlight strained relationships and poor collaboration within the child protection service system. Despite organisational, technological, legislative, and procedural changes to enhance and facilitate interagency working, these interventions have generally failed to realise this goal. Trust and shared values are considered integral to effective interagency working. Developing trust and thus effective working relationships is fraught when one group of workers in the service system is perceived to be “dirty workers.” This chapter explores the concept of “dirty work.” It suggests that the way in which failure to attend to belief systems at the organisational, professional, and community level, particularly as they relate to the professional stigma which attaches to the practice of child protection work, inhibits the ability of agencies to work successfully together.

More than Pills and Beds

Contemporary models of mental healthcare emphasise the importance of multi-disciplinary approaches in supporting recovery for consumers. There is growing evidence of the key role to be played by social workers derived from both the principles of recovery and those underpinning social work theory and practice, particularly a focus on person-in-environment. However, pressures on the way mental healthcare is provided in Australia are threatening this confluence. These pressures are much more concerned with the needs of funders than professionals, consumers, and their families. The aim of this chapter is to explore the evidence to support social work as an integral element in mental health recovery and to better understand these emerging challenges. The role of social work in good mental healthcare is too important to become marginalized; yet this prospect is real. Better understanding of the contemporary landscape of social work can help ensure this does not occur.

Refugee Women

This chapter approaches the topic of resettlement social work with women refugees portrayed as resilient yet reluctant users of social work services. While the field of social work with refugees has already been widely introduced and discussed, less attention has been paid to resettlement work with women refugees. In order to contextualise this discussion, key terms are briefly defined, and relevant legislation together with demographic features are covered. The chapter includes a case study presented by one of the authors, an expert by experience. Research relating to this field of practice is presented and ethical issues discussed. Practical applications and cultural concerns derived from the research suggest how practitioners and refugee women may work together, drawing on the strengths and experience of the refugee women to achieve goals that are consistent with those set out by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Navigating Practice-Informed Evidence and Evidence-Based Practice

This chapter explores social workers' application of practice evidence in their everyday work in team and agency contexts. Practice evidence concerns the practitioner seeking the best available knowledge, accessed, adapted, and applied to guide practice with clients. How social workers decide which sources to draw from and which are appropriate sources of evidence for practice is based on many considerations. These include the social worker's values and ethics for practice, legislative and policy requirements, professional standards of practice, and the range of theories applied to any case or situation encountered in practice. Practice wisdom, or the experience gained in the repetition of seeing the same kind of client presentations across time, produces a further source which is drawn upon within the social worker's repertoire of knowledge. In this sense, there are multiple knowledge frameworks within which social workers operate, balancing contradictory and competing discourses about “what works” in any practice situation.

Why Search for Evidence for Practice in Social Work?

How is evidence integrated into the practice relationship between social worker and client? Studies suggest that at the practice level research is not consistently utilised. Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) has been hailed as a means of bringing practice and research together in a way that strengthens the empirical base of social work. Although EBP has had strong endorsement, it has also come under heavy criticism. This chapter explores these concerns in the hope of further clarifying the model. The need for an inclusive definition of evidence is emphasised giving rightful place to empirical research and to other forms of evidence. The need for a synthesis of evidence-based practice and critical reflection is also explored. Evidence must be used in a critically reflective way if it is to be used effectively. Finally, the language of “evidence-informed” is shown to more clearly articulate the components of the EBP process.