Navigating Practice-Informed Evidence and Evidence-Based Practice

2014 ◽  
pp. 82-95
Author(s):  
Margaret Pack
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Standards Of Practice ◽  
What Works ◽  
The Social ◽  
Everyday Work

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.

Navigating Practice-Informed Evidence and Evidence-Based Practice

2016 ◽  
pp. 826-840
Author(s):  
Margaret Pack
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Standards Of Practice ◽  
What Works ◽  
The Social ◽  
Everyday Work

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.

scholarly journals Evidence-based practice in social work: Who are the critics?

2020 ◽  
pp. 146801732095513
Author(s):  
Joakim Finne
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Social Sector ◽  
The Social

Summary The aim of this study is to analyse attitudes towards and the utilisation of evidence-based practice among social workers in Norway. The data were collected in 2014–2015 from social workers in four Norwegian counties. The sample consists of 2060 social workers registered as members of the Norwegian Union of Social Educators and Social Workers. Findings The main findings in this study indicate that social workers in child welfare are generally less critical of evidence-based practice than those within social welfare. Higher education and knowledge about evidence-based practice are seen as predictors for less critical attitudes towards the concept. The findings further suggest that social workers who use manuals and standardised procedures are less critical of evidence-based practice. Applications Understanding social workers’ attitudes towards evidence-based practice is important in order to facilitate the best possible practices. This study emphasises the importance of increasing knowledge of evidence-based practice in the social sector, and the need to further investigate how research methods and evidence-based practice concepts are translated into practice.

scholarly journals The Need for Evidence-Based Practice in the Foster Care Field among Social Workers in Gulf Countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Hassan Arab
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Personal Perspective ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Evidence Based Practices ◽  
Gulf Countries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Care Field ◽  
Temporary Solution

The demand for Evidence-Based Practice "EBP" has been growing for a long-term and yet, there isn't a reply to this growth. Social Workers continue to rely on personal perspective, common sense, tradition when working with their clients in the foster care field as well as their personal beliefs in their assessment and intervention plans. Throughout a journey around the GCC countries to compare the adoption systems, and the social worker's work perspective in all the assessment stages, and tracing to intervention plans or treatment methods; it was noted that social workers still consume and revive an environment free of any evidence-based practices. In order to patch this glitch a sample of a practice sheet that consists of theoretical framework can be used as a temporary solution in order to provide an evidence-based practices in the foster care field.

The Promotion of Avoidable Ignorance in the British Journal of Social Work

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Gambrill
Keyword(s):  
British Journal ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Professional Journals ◽  
The Status ◽  
Dangerous Knowledge

The manifest purpose of professional journals is to share important knowledge. Increasing revelations of flaws in the peer-reviewed literature shows that this purpose is often not honored and that inflated claims of knowledge as well as other concerns such as misrepresentations of disliked or misunderstood views are rife. In this article, avoidable misunderstandings of science and evidence-based practice (EBP) in publications in the British Journal of Social Work 2005–2016 are described as well as strategies used to forward misinformation. Such discourse misinforms rather than informs readers and decreases opportunities to accurately inform social workers about possibilities to help clients and to avoid harming them and to involve clients as informed participants. Those writing about avoidable ignorance highlight how it is used strategically, perhaps to neutralize what is viewed as dangerous knowledge—the process of EBP and science generally, which may threaten the status quo.

Evidence-based practice and management-by-knowledge of disability care: rigid constraint or fluid support?

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabella Pistone ◽  
Allan Lidström ◽  
Ingemar Bohlin ◽  
Thomas Schneider ◽  
Teun Zuiderent-Jerak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Rigid Constraint ◽  
Care Practices

Background: Although increasingly accepted in some corners of social work, critics have claimed that evidence-based practice (EBP) methodologies run contrary to local care practices and result in an EBP straitjacket and epistemic injustice. These are serious concerns, especially in relation to already marginalised clients.Aims and objectives: Against the backdrop of criticism against EBP, this study explores the ramifications of the Swedish state-governed knowledge infrastructure, ‘management-by-knowledge’, for social care practices at two care units for persons with intellectual disabilities.Methods: Data generated from ethnographic observations and interviews were analysed by applying a conceptual framework of epistemic injustice; also analysed were national, regional and local knowledge products within management-by-knowledge related to two daily activity (DA) units at a social care provider in Sweden.Findings: In this particular case of disability care, no obvious risks of epistemic injustice were discovered in key knowledge practices of management-by-knowledge. Central methodologies of national agencies did include perspectives from social workers and clients, as did regional infrastructures. Locally, there were structures in place that focused on creating a dynamic interplay between knowledge coming from various forms of evidence, including social workers’ and clients’ own knowledge and experience.Discussion and conclusions: Far from being a straitjacket, in the case studied management-by-knowledge may be understood as offering fluid support. Efforts which aim at improving care for people with disabilities might benefit from organisational support structures that enable dynamic interactions between external knowledge and local practices.<br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Examining one case of disability care in Sweden, both social workers’ and clients’ experiences were included in EBP infrastructures.</li><br /><li>In this study, Swedish EBP infrastructures functioned more like fluid support than a straitjacket.</li><br /><li>Organisational structures that combine different knowledge sources at service providers can minimise the risk of epistemic injustice within social care.</li></ul>

scholarly journals Research Use and Evidence-Based Practice Among Swedish Medical Social Workers: A Qualitative Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Udo ◽  
Henrietta Forsman ◽  
Marcus Jensfelt ◽  
Maria Flink
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Research Use ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Swedish Medical
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