Research–Practice Integration in Real Practice Settings

Abstract

At the National Bridging the Research and Practice Gap Symposium to discuss evidence-based practice (EBP) in social work, 150 participants attended five breakout groups to address real practice setting applications. These participants from social work academia and practice communities addressed issues and looked for solutions to promote research–practice integration. Their discussions of EBP implementation issues identified five areas of focus, including the urgent need to (1) provide training, (2) design interventions based on developmental and cultural competence, (3) plan research-informed strategies with an effective infrastructure, (4) initiate research–practice integration in the process of developing social work interventions, and (5) prepare future practitioners and educators to begin collaborative work. Their recommendations focused on people-oriented, skills-based preparations, such as the provision of consumer-oriented EBP information, intervention applications and observations, development of formal training programs to connect academia to field practice, and a planning process to develop competence-based EBP curricula and practice bases.

Keywords

evidence-based practice practice–research integration social work educators social work practitioner-researchers EBP training

This is a report of the final breakout group discussions, held at the National Bridging the Research and Practice Gap Symposium, at the University of Houston, on April 5 and 6, 2013, which focused on evidence-based practice (EBP) in social work. About 70 participants were engaged in five breakout groups. These participants represented a balance between social work academicians and practitioners. These breakout groups addressed different ways to engage social workers and social work educators in utilizing evidence-based materials to enhance practice. Specific topics were (1) Training and Fidelity of Empirically Supported Interventions in Real Settings; (2) Cultural/Developmental Adaptation of Interventions in Real Practice Settings; (3) Using Research to Inform Practice with Comorbid or Complex Client Presentations; (4) Bridging the Gap: Organizational and Administrative Issues; and (5) Preparing Current and Future Practitioners to Integrate Research in Real Practice Settings. Recommendations generated from the presentations and discussions under each topic will be summarized subsequently.

Training and Fidelity of Empirically Supported Interventions in Real Settings

Speaker: Allison Metz, PhD, National Implementation Research Network

This breakout group generated five recommendations concerning training and fidelity with respect to applying empirically based interventions in practice. The first is related to consumers and advocacy. As practice and research are integrated, it is important to: (1) empower and coach consumers to demand appropriate treatments; (2) design appropriate interventions or treatments prior to implementing training; (3) plan ahead; (4) ask questions related to findings generated from practice wisdom; and (5) evaluate what works and what does not.

The second recommendation is to find useful means to connect training to field practice. Three major challenges related to this connection process can be anticipated: (1) How should staff be supervised to facilitate this linkage? (2) What needs to be done to bridge the gap between EBP learning in the classroom and in the field? (3) How can the EBP team engage instructors who have applied research in practice and discover what has been done differently in the past?

The third recommendation is to invite academia to bridge the gap. Because it is important to make sure academicians and practitioners work as a team, there should be no reluctance for educators approaching agencies to find appropriate research–practice partners. All working groups should include the goal of integrating feedback from consumers, policy makers, service providers, and bachelor of social work/master of social work (BSW/MSW) curriculum chairs. All training should focus on skill-based applications with clearly defined goals.

A question was raised regarding whether to require skills-based exit exams. First, before requiring such testing, a team of practitioners and researchers must work together to design these exams in terms of format and content. Education and practice should be partnered to ensure exam accuracy and practicality. Second, it is helpful to identify specific EBP licensure requirements and agencies responsible for making that determination, such as National Association of Social Workers (NASW). It is also essential to locate funding sources to pay for license setup. Third, it is also important to define accountability in EBP applications. Fourth, it is necessary to decide how EBP can be applied to both clinical and macro applications. Finally, requirements for continuing education on EBP should be specified.

The final recommendation relates to the use of implementation frameworks. Since training alone does not equal fidelity, it is important to use a framework to identify the complex factors involved, finding the major variables when testing the impact of training and supervision, the type of feedback expected, and the accountability measures that should be used to evaluate success.

Cultural/Developmental Adaptation of Interventions in Real Practice Settings

Speaker: Flavio Marsiglia, PhD, Arizona State University

This breakout group developed nine recommendations related to the cultural and developmental adaptation of interventions in real practice settings. Most importantly, the first requires the development of a common language on the subject, as it is critical to be able to communicate effectively in diverse cultural and developmental settings. Second, the development of community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships is critical. These partnerships should comprise practitioners, clients, and researchers with equal participation, authority, and respect. The third recommendation requires a collective agreement of decolonizing research. In other words, it is important that researchers and practitioners integrate their work, recognizing the synergies that result when experts in both areas combine their knowledge and expertise. Fourth, it is critical that we value different forms of knowledge, including academic knowledge, practical knowledge, and cultural knowledge. The fifth recommendation is to build capacity. This requires that we increase diversity in all areas of practice, adding a broad range of culturally diverse academics and practitioners, as well as culturally respectful agencies and facilities. Sixth, adapting interventions to real practice settings requires sharing academic and research data with agencies for purposes of proposal writing, evaluation, training, and team morale. Promoting dialogue between practitioners and academics/researchers through regular meetings is the seventh recommendation. These meetings should incorporate a social structure that aims to enhance interactions and camaraderie, perhaps in the form of lunch meetings that fit everyone’s schedule. Eighth, broad inclusion of clients, practitioners, and researchers in each step of the process will enhance effectiveness in adapting interventions to real life practice. Finally, the ninth recommendation is to facilitate definitions of identities with communities. Specifically, this recommendation does not suggest that definitions should be made for the community but rather that the various cultural communities come together to provide appropriate definitions for distinct identities that are determinants for the design used in further research.

Using Research to Inform Practice with Comorbid or Complex Client Presentations

Speaker: Mary McKay, PhD, New York University

Initially, this breakout group addressed the reasons why it is important to use research to inform practice with comorbid or complex client presentations. Most importantly is the goal of improving outcomes. This includes improvement in processes, services, the ways in which change is measured, and, most fundamentally, whether clients are getting better. Additionally, research helps the team of practitioners and researchers to better understand the needs of the population through needs assessments. Research can identify whether what we are doing is working in populations with comorbid or complex presentations. This component includes attention to the ethics and morals of the profession, based on the fundamental requirement that we do no harm. Other research goals include identifying patient populations, documenting the complexities of the patient experience, standardizing practice protocols, and providing the stability needed by these complex clients.

In addition to research goals, this breakout group identified areas in which cultural complexities have an impact in addressing clients with comorbid or complex presentations. These include cultural stigmas associated with getting access to care as well as fears relating to the system itself. From the provider/system of care perspective, cultural issues include shortages of providers from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, as well as difficulties in developing normative practice approaches with culturally varied populations.

When discussing ways in which research can inform practice, the group identified a number of factors. The first is the need for adaptability in policy assessment, formation, and change. Second is the need to standardize treatment protocols to accurately assess effectiveness. At the same time, researchers must understand the need to be flexible in meeting both agency and client needs, and the importance of starting with the needs of the client or agency in order to develop a client-centered culture. It is important for the team of practitioners and researchers to collaborate in facilitating the change process and in identifying specific gaps in utilizing evidence-based protocols for treatment.

The breakout group identified the treatment priority in this population as coordination of services, particularly with respect to addressing the complex needs of individuals who have been unable to maintain stability in community-based settings, but who instead experience rapid readmission to high-value, intensive care services.

A number of specific factors were identified as contributing to the complexity of this client population, thus emphasizing the importance of working from treatment protocols that are flexible. These factors include (1) physical health; (2) the existence of interpersonal relationships, including marriage or domestic relationships and children; (3) the relative health of those interpersonal relationships, including boundary issues, substance use and abuse, parenting struggles, and so on; (4) client motivations for seeking care, including whether interventions are voluntary, court-mandated, or the result of family pressures; (5) socioeconomic concerns, including poverty, food, housing, and transportation needs; (6) the client’s need and ability to manage competing demands, such as job, family, and the activities of daily life; and (7) the client’s readiness for change.

The group also discussed challenges associated with system navigation and identified a number of issues that contribute to practice concerns with this population. These challenges include (1) identifying specific mental health needs which may make it difficult for clients to access services independently; (2) clarifying qualifying and eligibility requirements for service delivery; (3) researching systems issues related to the limited resources available to clients, including both logistics and emotional reserves; (4) highlighting cognitive issues ranging from intellectual capacity to literacy and the educational backgrounds of both clients and families; (5) understanding cultural norms of both clients and providers with respect to approaches to care; (6) identifying noncompliance and attrition issues; and (7) responding to the impact of immigration status, including stigma experienced by some cultural groups and the fear that seeking services might place individuals or families at risk of deportation.

Finally, this breakout group addressed miscellaneous concerns surrounding the need to make research relevant to practice. These included identifying and building from joint priorities of researchers and clients, rather than focusing on one or the other. The group discussed the reasons why social work as a discipline frequently fails to identify with research, and the disconnect between researchers and practitioners in explaining why research is relevant to the field. These reasons include concerns with research’s congruency with social work values as well as the stigma surrounding a top-down approach in which researchers are seen as the drivers of practice, rather than their important role in addressing the needs of a specific clientele. To that end, it is important to address the flexibilities and adaptability of EBP when applied to actual clients and agencies. Likewise, emphasizing the transferability of research will make it more user-friendly, and thus more acceptable to the practice community. It would also be helpful to increase visibility of research in the mainstream media to promote greater acceptance by the general public, both clients and practitioners.

Bridging the Gap: Organizational and Administrative Issues

Speaker: Bowen McBeath, PhD, Portland State University

This breakout group identified three key areas in which to focus on organizational and administrative issues contributing to the gap between research and practice: (1) breaking apart research–practice silos; (2) identifying the key roles of administrators; and (3) building and sustaining a learning organizational culture. These three areas aim to eliminate the institutional demarcations between research and practice.

First, organizations should develop and work to sustain settings that kindle creative research-to-practice sparks, build partnerships, critical ally networks to break isolation, and provide support to practice researchers. These settings and partnerships should include dialogue based on learning, rather than simply using data to report. In other words, it is important to discuss the data in the context of practice. Rather than simply reporting the data and expecting practitioners to adapt their practice accordingly or simply reporting practices and expecting researchers to produce supportive data, both parties should share experiences and expertise in the context of developing EBPs that work in the field. This discussion should include clarifying points of shared value and relevance, to reach a mutual understanding of what social work really means to service users and its funding sources.

Second, in creating such receptive organizational settings, administrators’ key roles are to ask questions, provide leadership, manage the organization in data-driven ways, and streamline collected data to respond to researchers and service users. In this context, administrators should identify researchable questions relevant to the agency mission and practice goals. Leadership requires convening practitioners and researchers around concrete, agency-based research practice and programs. In managing the agency, it is important to do so in data-driven ways. In other words, the agency should utilize programs and practices that work and have been demonstrated to work. Agency stakeholders should receive information about these programs and practices in data-supported ways. Finally, data collection should be streamlined, so that it can be utilized to respond to questions posed by researchers, service providers, service users, and funding sources.

Third, building and sustaining a learning organizational culture requires the fulfillment of at least four tasks: (1) asking questions at all levels of the agency; (2) collaborating cross-agency and within the agency both vertically and horizontally; (3) deliberately building connections in organizational culture for research; and (4) using common EBP language and taking the time to translate shared communications into dialogue that can be utilized by all stakeholders.

Preparing Current and Future Practitioners to Integrate Research in Real Practice Settings

Speaker: Bruce Thyer, PhD, Florida State University

In this breakout group, a major recommendation is to create education links that can improve practice competence. Major points were summarized by the word “COMPETENCE”—Critical learning, Organizing effort, Moving ahead, Problem-focused methods, Evidence-based emphasis in practice, Translational evidence, E-materials and education links, Network on a two-way bridge, Connecting ideas, and Emerging questions.

Critical Learning

Understand that evidence should not be boundary limited and ask the questions, “Where should we start to train critical learning” and “How do we teach students and practitioners to consume and to do?” The skill of critical thinking is one of the skills that practitioners must possess in order to adopt EBP (Pollio, 2006). We may start the teaching plan from the educational policy and accreditation standards (EPAS) requirements, which include “mandates” and “critical thinking.” As educators, we need to be familiar with “teach to do,” as well as “teach to consume and critically think.” As researchers, we should know the differences between research and critical research skills. Also, clients’ situations can be incorporated into the critical thinking process so that some beginning research ideas can be generated.

Organizing Effort

Collaborate with the NASW and/or other organizations to include our role and commitment as a practitioner–researcher in the code of ethics, organize educational opportunities on a regular basis to promote this role expectation, and introduce ways to implement the evidence-informed practice. The code of ethics in both micro and macro field settings should be specifically stated.

Moving Ahead

Motivate users systematically to review research-based findings through summarizing findings in user-friendly articles or materials. Journals may not seem helpful to social work practitioners. Practitioners may not have sufficient training to enable them to interpret research findings (Bellamy, Bledsoe, Mullen, Fang, & Manuel, 2008; Murray, 2009). Systematic research or the use of jargon may scare social workers away from their engagement in research. As researchers, it is valuable to think about how we should use language to inspire people to learn from evidence-based materials, as well as transfer and maintain the updated models in practice. Also, agencies should have the resources to make changes and create cultural shifts to partner with universities in implementing EBPs.

Problem-Focused Methods

Assess student learning through creative teaching methods that not only identify problems but also provide information to find the best possible solutions. Problem-based learning is an option to integrate ideas about EBP and research, as well as being knowledgeable consumers. Problem-based learning can be used in teaching and case study learning as a research process and/or hypothesis-setting step, with evidence incorporated into the thinking process. Educators can be trained to use the teaching method in group processing, as well as coaching students and disseminating information. In this way, both research methods and practical aspects are to be incorporated in student learning.

Evidence Emphasis in Practice

Provide research-supported treatment to clients and teach EBP in social work education. Before treatment is provided to clients, practitioners can build a library of common issues to legitimately assess clients. Practitioners should remember that good relationship skills should be the first step, and evidence does matter. Social work education should incorporate field experiences in teaching and practice in order to prepare students to adopt EBP in agency practice and in the future (Bledsoe-Mansori et al., 2013). Field work should not be defined as a barrier in research, but as a facilitator, focusing on field instruction incorporating research—a two-for-one learning opportunity. Field-class integration can be concretely and holistically infused in a coordinated way in order to reach the goal. There are also resources for teaching clinical practice skills with evidence. Examples include EBP registry under Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), research-supported treatments (see http://www.psychologicaltreatments.org/), and active monitoring methods used by clients to eliminate drug use.

Translational Evidence

Discuss the process of promoting practitioner-based involvement when incorporating research into practice, so that data are effectively used. The practitioner plays an important role in the translation of research into the practice process, as EBP requires critical assessment of evidence based on clinical expertise as well as client circumstances (Pettus-Davis, Grady, Cuddeback, & Scheyett, 2011). In academia, the meaning of translational research could be valuable to make suggestions to institutions for information dissemination. For example, students and/or field instructors could discuss access evidence-based websites during orientations.

E-materials and Education links

Use web-based resources to identify the best evidence-based information, both at micro- and macro levels, for use in the field. For instance, the Campbell Corporation offers a series of systematic review videos with articles on research and social work practice on its website. Other organizations also provide free database and online resources for EBP learning modules.

Network on a Two-Way Bridge

Provide an environment in which researchers and practitioners can work together, appreciate each other’s point of view, and then become each other with a dual role in practice. The questions are “What can we do to engage practitioners and researchers at the same time?” and “How do we engage agencies to identify ways to teach our students to use data?” It is unlikely that social workers choose the practice; it is more likely to be agency determined, not individually based. Therefore, researchers must work with agencies directly to provide support for evidence building. Although time spent may not be a factor, financial means and agency support, including that from the upper management, are essential for the evidence building process. Good practices can be documented in a practice manual to develop agency-based practice. Long-term partnerships between agencies and universities can also help facilitate the sustained implementation of EBP in the practice settings (Bledsoe-Mansori et al., 2013; Fixsen, Naoom, Blasé, Friedman, & Wallace, 2005).

Connecting Ideas

Learn to value an EBP approach in various settings and train interns to value it. Students should be trained to have readiness as a researcher in any setting, and such training should start as early as the undergraduate programs. Field supervisors should ask students what they can give back to the agencies. Agencies should build time to construct the learning culture and process and allow practitioners to do evidence collection. We should also think about how to change the culture through funders or state governments.

Emerging Questions

How do we share service outcomes through agency–university partnership; identify opportunities and constraints in terms of time commitment; consolidate resources within a major social work hub (e.g., introducing experts in the field, identifying research process and methods for practice use, as well as providing easy access to practice-based research materials)?

In this breakout group, two practitioners expressed that they would be likely to use these resources if the information within the readily available resources is user-friendly. To follow up, a summary of current EBP resources and website links is provided in Table 1 to encourage application and further resource expansion.

Table 1.

Evidence-Based Resources for Social Work Practice and Education.

Evidence-Based Resources	Purpose	Website Access
The Cochrane Collaboration	Set standards for reviews of medical, health, and mental health treatments and offers “systematic reviews” of related research by disorder	Go to http://www.cochrane.org Click “Cochrane Reviews” For summaries, click “Browse free summaries,” type in key words and click “Search” For full-text reports, click “The Cochrane Library (Full-text) under ‘About the Cochrane Library,’ type in key words in the box on the left upper corner, and click GO”
The Campbell Collaboration	Offer free access to reviews and review-related documents on practice and policies in social welfare and other fields	Go to http://www.campbellcollaboration.org Click “The Campbell Library” Type in key words in the “Search for” box Choose “Title,” “Authors,” “Keywords,” or “All text” in the drop-down box Click “Search”
National Guideline Clearinghouse	Provide objective, detailed information on clinical practice guidelines and further their dissemination, implementation and use	Go to http://www.guideline.gov/ Click “Guidelines” on the left column Type in key words in the box and click “Search” Or, browse the guidelines by clicking the descriptions under “Browse” on the left column
Clinical Trails	Provide information on publicly and privately supported clinical studies on a variety of conditions and diseases	Go to http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ Type in key words in the box and click “Search” Or, click “Advanced Search” under the box, fill in any fields, and click “Search”
National Institute on Health	Provide information on medical research and scientific studies that turn discovery into health	Go to http://www.nih.gov Move the cursor to “Research and Training” Click “Research Resources” Click “Library Resources” Click “National Library of Medicine” Type in key words in the search box on the right upper corner Press “Enter” on your keyboard
National Institute on Drug Abuse	Provide information on research which focus on drug abuse prevention and treatment as well as the impact of the consequences	Go to http://www.drugabuse.gov Move the cursor to “Related Topics” Click “Treatment Research” Or, type in key words in the box on the right upper box Click “Search”
“What Works Clearinghouse” in Education	Provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions	Go to http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/ Click “Publications & Reviews” Type in key words under “Find WWC Publications & Reviews” Choose the topics and publication and review types in the drop-down boxes Click “Search”
American Psychological Association’s Division 12 (Clinical Psychology) website	Provide a compendium of psychological research that demonstrates the value and application of psychological science	Go to http://www.apa.org/about/index.aspx Click “Research” Click “Research in Action” Click on a topic to view resources
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality	Provide policy makers and other health care leaders with research findings and information needed to make health care decisions	Go to http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/index.html Click “Research Tools & Data” Click “Research Findings & Reports” Click on a topic to view resources
National Association of Social Workers	Provide information regarding empirically supported treatments and services to practitioners	Go to http://www.socialworkers.org/ Click “Resources” Click “Social Work Research” Click “EVIDENCE-BASED Practice” Click on an item to view resources

Integration: Implications to Social Work as a Profession

Studies have shown that social work practitioners’ lack of knowledge and training in EBP are the main barriers limiting their use of EBP on a regular basis (Bellamy, Bledsoe, & Traube, 2006; Bledsoe et al., 2007; Mullen, Shlonsky, Bledsoe, & Bellamy, 2005; Weissman & Sanderson, 2001). The participants in the five breakout groups focus on the importance of education links for social work practitioners to develop evidence-based competence for their practice. Educational preparation (BSW, MSW, doctorate in social work [DSW]/PhD) with a focus on the use of evidence is the first step that influences the culture of adopting EBP in the process of knowledge building and skill applications. Participating in or providing training after graduation can provide a bridge to exercising one’s role to impact social work practice. The key is about education—knowing first and then proving it. The role of practitioners should not be separated from the role of educators. There must be a practitioner–researcher partnership in EBP to achieve the goal of (1) educational transfer, (2) cultural applications, and (3) building a better future.

Educational Transfer

Concerning educational transfer, one might question how little we have learned from major social work conferences. The idea of participating in the conferences is that collaborative meetings can provide a good start to bridge the research and practice gap in the social work field. The whole array of research methods, such as needs assessment, process evaluation, and surveys, may not be required to start research collaboration with practitioners; however, the first important step is to accomplish the goal of social work education. For example, educators must empower current and future practitioners to appreciate research and experience the process of EBP through educational projects. Practitioners, similarly, bridge the gap with their wealth of skills that have been tested with specific clientele. While acknowledging the importance of applying the practice–research integration model in education, it is also noted that no single factor can predict fidelity of such application unless testing is done in the real setting (Bond, Drake, McHugo, Rapp, & Whitley, 2009). Documentation of the process should be a focus of fidelity studies, aiming to bring information to the next stage of application. Sharing knowledge and providing evidence informs the knowledge-building process.

Attitude building is another major ingredient in promoting EBP. For instance, Wolf et al. (2014) tested and refined the EBP Attitude Scale for its use in the real world. With 1,273 participants in the state of New York, their study convinced social workers that attitudes represent an important measure, as the scale can become a means to encourage workers to apply EBP principles in practice. Worker attitudes may vary based on the type and intensity of services; however, managerial staff’s value toward using EBP that is highlighted during training can increase the level of positivity in worker attitudes. From problem formulation to resource identification, EBP planning and implementation must be done with collaborative effort in order to reach a goal that is practically important and to complete objectives that are measurably achievable.

Cultural Applications

Concerning cultural applications, we must be aware that historically there has been a dichotomy between practitioner and researcher in the learning culture within social work as a discipline. Neither the practitioner nor the researcher has fully understood how EBP, in terms of its evaluative demands, could be implemented solely by inviting practitioners to evaluate their own practice. The research component has been suppressed when agencies do not have enough resources and/or supports for the development of a systematic and periodical review process.

As social workers maintain their interest in multicultural applications, they must be aware of the need to identifying data that support the mission of promoting justice. Researching practice outcomes is no longer just about “linking” research to practice, it is a “formalized” partnership with a focus on utilizing the strengths of all partners and analyzing how the partnership commitment can benefit each of these partners (McCrystal & Godfrey, 2001, p. 548). What was called “researcher–practitioner partnerships” as an agency-initiated or university-initiated project in the past (Mullen, 2002, p. 329) should be renamed as “evidence-based practice collaborations” in that it is more than partnerships as many roles have been merged within a team of partners whose goal is to solve problems and promote the well-being of the client systems they jointly serve. Spiel and Strohmeier (2012) suggest that this collaborative effort must be expanded to include not only academicians and practitioners but also policy makers, service administrators, and the mass media.

Building a Better Future

For a better future, as discussed in these breakout groups, creative ways to implement EBP should include (1) collaborations among academic institutions, research agencies, and practice agencies; (2) utilization of evidence-based materials for training, service planning, administrative joining, and evaluation; and (3) analysis of input from researcher–practitioner partnerships from an array of multicultural perspectives. Without training, research, and evaluation, practitioners will not be able to prove the effectiveness of the treatments they provide. Without proof of effectiveness, the helping profession cannot justify its existence or further development. In other words, EBP in social work is indeed a “transdisciplinary approach” to identify best resources and evidence to work with clients in their multifaceted environment (Bellamy et al., 2013, p. 426). Professional education with a focus on critical analysis of the current state of evidence is a first step to advance the application of this approach that responds to the needs of our clients.

As Thyer concluded in the fifth group, “If what you do makes no difference in what you do, what you do don’t matter.” To ensure that our profession continues to move forward, it is time to implement and expand our commitment to EBP and systematically and comprehensively evaluate the performance and outcome of social work practice. These discussions lead social work to plan an infrastructure with a stage that aims to build various types of support to enhance practice effectiveness.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

Bellamy

J. L.

Bledsoe

S. E.

Mullen

E. J.

Fang

Manuel

J. I.

(2008). Agency-university partnership for evidence-based practice in social work. Journal of Social Work Education, 44, 55–75.

Bellamy

J. L.

Bledsoe

S. E.

Traube

(2006). The current state of evidence-based practice in social work: A review of the literature and qualitative analysis of expert interviews. Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work, 3, 23–48.

Bellamy

J. L.

Mullen

E. J.

Satterfield

J. M.

Newhouse

R. P.

Ferguson

Brownson

R. C.

Spring

(2013). Implementing evidence-based practice education in social work: A transdisciplinary approach. Research on Social Work Practice, 23, 426–436.

Bledsoe

S. E.

Weissman

M. M.

Mullen

E. J.

Ponniah

Gameroff

Verdeli

… Wickramaratne

(2007). Empirically supported psychotherapy in social work training programs: Does the definition of evidence matter? Research on Social Work Practice, 17, 449–455.

Bledsoe-Mansori

S. E.

Manuel

J. I.

Bellamy

J. L.

Fang

Dinata

Mullen

E. J.

(2013). Implementing evidence-based practice: Practitioner assessment of an agency-based training program. Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work, 10, 73–90.

Bond

G. R.

Drake

R. E.

McHugo

G. J.

Rapp

C. A.

Whitley

(2009). Strategies for improving fidelity in the national evidence-based practices project. Research on Social Work Practice, 19, 569–581.

Fixsen

D. L.

Naoom

S. F.

Blasé

K. A.

Friedman

R. M.

Wallace

(2005). Implementation research: A synthesis of the literature. Tampa, FL: University of South Florida, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, The National Implementation Research Network.

McCrystal

Godfrey

(2001). Developing a researcher-practitioner partnership for the effective evaluation of professional social work training. Social Work Education, 20, 539–549. doi:10.1080/02615470120064705

Mullen

E. J.

(2002). Problem formulation in practitioner and researcher partnerships: A decade of experience at the center for the study of social work practice. Social Work Education, 21, 323–336. doi:10.1080/02615470220136902

10.

Mullen

E. J.

Shlonsky

Bledsoe

S. E.

Bellamy

J. L.

(2005). From concept to implementation: Challenges facing evidence-based social work. Evidence and Policy, 1, 61–84.

11.

Murray

C. E.

(2009). Diffusion of innovation theory: A bridge for the research-practice gap in counseling. Journal of Counseling and Development, 87, 108–116.

12.

Pettus-Davis

Grady

Cuddeback

Scheyett

(2011). A practitioner’s guide to sampling in the age of evidence-based practice: Translation of research into practice. Clinical Social Work Journal, 39, 379–389.

13.

Pollio

D. E.

(2006). The art of evidence-based practice. Research on Social Work Practice, 16, 224–232.

14.

Spiel

Strohmeier

(2012). Evidence-based practice and policy: When researchers, policy makers, and practitioners learn how to work together. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9, 150–162.

15.

Weissman

M. M.

Sanderson

W. C.

(2001). Promises and problems in modern psychotherapy: The need for increased training in evidence-based treatments. In Hager

(Ed.), Modern psychiatry: Challenges in educating health professionals to meet new needs (pp. 132–165). New York, NY: Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.

16.

Wolf

D. A. P. S.

Dulmus

C. N.

Maguin

Fava

(2014). Refining the evidence-based practice attitude scale: An alternative confirmatory factor analysis. Social Work Research, 38, 47–58.