Alan Rubin (of Rubin & Babbie's Research Methods for Social Work) visited UCLA last week. I had to miss his presentation, but my classmate, Nancy, took these notes...
1) Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is a Process while Empirically Supported Treatments (EST) are just possible sources of treatment guides.
2) If an EST is selected based upon the best evidence "for a particular population" and the practitioner finds that it is not working, the practitioner is responsible for trying another strategy.
3) As a result, practitioners should be given more of a menu of possible interventions rather than just being forced to utilize one particular EST.
4) He thought what Bruce Chorpita was doing with evidence-based core skills was an excellent approach and much in the spirit of EBP.
5) I also asked about the disconnect between the critical thinking skills required for the EBP process and the reality that some practitioners do not have the skills or desire to review academic literature. He stated that this is a concern that is not easily resolved. He stated that ideally people should review the literature themselves, which hopefully will change as social work education makes cultural shifts; however, there are two possible solutions for right now:
a) Make it an MSW internship project for them to review and summarize relevant ESTs for one target population that an agency serves.
b) He has been writing "guides to EBP" for particular populations that summarize the interventions without giving research details. He provides the research evidence in the appendix for those who are interested.
It is our responsibility to figure out how to disseminate the information in a practical way for easy consumption.
Thanks. Can you say more about your term papers writing research?
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