Importance of Evidence-Based Practice

Areas such as medicine, mental health, and youth violence prevention are increasingly relying on the identification and delivery of practices that are supported by strong scientific research. They are also relying on the active integration of research evidence into day-to-day service provision. While some fields have embraced this movement toward evidence-based practice for decades, there is reason to believe that it still takes years to spread scientifically proven practices into everyday practice across the country (Institute of Medicine, 2001).

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) defines "evidence-based practice" as a combination of the following three factors: (1) best research evidence, (2) best clinical experience, and (3) consistent with patient values (IOM, 2001). These three factors are also relevant for child welfare.

We propose adopting the Institute of Medicine's definition for evidence-based child welfare practice with a slight variation that incorporates child welfare language:

• Best Research Evidence
• Best Clinical Experience
• Consistent with Family/Client Values

This definition builds on a foundation of scientific research while honoring the clinical experience of child welfare practitioners, and being fully cognizant of the values of the families we serve.

Reference:
Institute of Medicine. (2001). Crossing the quality chasm: A new health system for the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Adopting evidence-based practices requires a large volume of scientifically sound research that has been tested in ways that allows for it to be replicated. In fact, the base of solid empirical research evidence on child welfare practices is still in an early developmental state. There are some areas in child welfare that have been heavily researched; yet in many areas, little research has been conducted.

Evidence-based practice:

• Ensures that the best interventions are available and utilized with families.
• Provides a road map for child welfare workers in their work with families.
• Structures services to provide every family with the same interventions regardless of where services are provided or who is providing the services.
• Allows child welfare workers to inform the community about different types of evidence-based services that are available for families and children.
• Provides assurance to child welfare directors that child welfare workers are trained to provide and refer families to services that are supported by research.
• Diminishes liability for child welfare agencies when child welfare workers are providing and referring to services based on proven models of practice.
• Minimizes personal biases of staff.
• Provides the ability to evaluate practices to ensure they meet the Federal and State targets for the outcomes of safety, permanency and child/family well-being.

Debby Jeter
Deputy Director
Family and Children's Division
San Francisco Human Services Agency
San Francisco, CA

Evidence-based practice:

• Ensures that families are referred to the most effective and efficacious programs that the community provides.
• Helps child welfare workers and supervisors empower families in crisis to resolve their own conflicts, using well-tested programs.
• Allows child welfare workers to refer families to services that have been scientifically researched and proven effective, which in turn may cause the families to make a greater commitment to participation.
• Provides child welfare workers with a better understanding of the range of programs available so they can make informed choices when referring families to services.

Deborah Reeves, ASW
Humboldt County Mental Health, Clinician I
Humboldt County Health & Human Services
Eureka, CA

Evidence-based practice:

• Helps community providers understand what programs and interventions "work" (i.e., under what conditions, when, and why?) for diverse child welfare populations.
• Is used for resource development (e.g., grant writing) as well as program development in diverse agencies and systems.
• Contributes to policy development and advocacy both in local communities and throughout California.
• Helps systems and cross-systems initiatives identify appropriate outcome targets and avoid the perils associated with "reinventing the wheel."
• Provides a template for results that have been yielded from specific interventions; but they also provide a template for needs for innovation and improvement that communities can develop from the "outside in."

Michael A. Lawson, MS
Director
Parent Led Assistance Network
Community School Solutions of California, Inc.
Child Abuse Prevention Center of California
North Highlands, CA

Evidence-based practice:

• Provides instructors and trainers with the assurance that what they are teaching is supported by research.
• Informs the student/trainee of the best evidence available for practice.
• Will be disseminated broadly within the field as a result of being taught in Regional Training Academies.
• Allows trainers to advocate for further study of a particular practice that may improve outcomes for children.

Chris Mathias
Director
California Social Work Education Center (Cal-SWEC)
University of California, Berkeley
School of Social Welfare
Berkeley, CA

Evidence-based practice:

• Has its foundation in the late 1600s and early 1700s, when the early founders of modern child welfare science strongly believed in and propagated for child welfare change and betterment based on scientific knowledge.
• Is dependent on academia to generate high quality evidence on what works and what is harmful.
• Allows for child welfare scientific advancement, which depends heavily on experimental research that can only meaningfully be conducted in relation to qualified practice.
• Needs to be taught to students who are new to the field, which will allow them to make decisions that are in the best interest of the families they will serve.

Haluk Soydan, Ph.D.
Research Professor,
University of Southern California, School of Social Work
Co-founder and Chair of the Campbell Collaborative
Los Angeles, CA