Introduction to the Special Issue on Intervention Research

It gives me great pleasure to present this special edition of Research on Social Work Practice on Intervention Research. If one thinks of the number and range of caregivers, and/or helping professionals in society, from in-home caregivers to volunteers, to citizen advocates, to pet therapists, to massage/exercise/music/dance therapists, to educators, doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and social workers, and so on, the common thread that ties all of these individuals together is the desire to answer the burning question—“Am I really making a difference with this individual/family/group/or community?” This very question is the lifeblood of all intervention research, the subject of this special edition journal.

Definitionally speaking, an intervention is any planned activity designed to produce systematic positive change in an individual by modifying a condition, process, or situation in their life and/or their environment. Research is the systematic investigation of a phenomena (Holosko & Thyer, 2011). Social work’s professional legacy is about change—understanding what works, what is promising, and also what doesn’t work or is potentially harmful, which is of great importance to our profession (Soydan, 2010, p. 457). Linking the profession’s historic indwelling about person-centered change to research and evaluation in general, and intervention research specifically, Fraser (2004, p. 210) stated, “…the essence of social work is the study of intervention—the development and design of systematic change strategies” (Rubin, 2000; Thyer, 2000).

When a social work practitioner in a health or human service agency provides an “off-the-shelf” intervention to a client or client group, he or she usually assumes three things about it: (a) it is based on empirical data that have shown it to be effective with clients who have similar sets of problems, that is, it is supported by high-quality research; (b) the goals, objectives, and outcomes of the intervention are clearly defined in measureable terms; and (c) after the clients receives said intervention, they will likely change in positive ways. Although these are quintessential assumptions about interventions, which we routinely use in practice, they are not always true. For instance, some interventions have minimal empirical evidence supporting their use (Fischer, 1973; Jensen, Weering, Hoagwood, & Goldman, 2005). Further, we tend to exacerbate this particular issue by using (available) homogeneous interventions applied indiscriminately to heterogeneous clients (Wodarski, 2011). Second, when we use interventions with our clients, sometimes their goals, objectives, and/or outcomes are cavalierly or differentially defined (Thyer & Myers, 2007). Third, when clients receive our planned interventions, some individuals will not change or cannot change or they may change due to the intervention in very different ways, for example, cognitively versus behaviorally (Singhet al., 2011; Zanis, 2005). Equally important to such assumptions is the noted lack of including their context and/or culture of clients who receive our interventions (Castro, Barrera, & Martinez, 2004; Fraser & Galinsky, 2010; Jensen et al., 2005; Nurius, 2010).

This is not to suggest that all social work interventions used are fraught with such uncertainties, but we, as a profession, have work to do in researching more about the planning, processes, design, implementation, and outcomes of our interventions. This challenge to the profession was first made clear in the watershed text called Intervention Research: Design and Development for Human Services by Rothman and Thomas in 1994 and was echoed more recently in the well-regarded and much appreciated body of work by Mark Fraser and colleagues from 2000 up until today. Ergo, the rationale for a special edition on this important area of study.

Earlier, Rothman and Thomas (1994) astutely outlined six essential steps in their so-called Design and Development approach to intervention research that included (1) problem analysis and project planning, (2) information gathering and synthesis, (3) design of intervention, (4) early development and pilot testing, (5) evaluation and advanced development, and (6) dissemination. Later, Fraser, Richman, Galinsky, and Day (2009) updated these steps both theoretically and methodologically into a more thorough and pragmatic five-step model which included Step 1—Develop problem and program theories, Step 2—Specify program structures and processes, Step 3—Refine and confirm in efficacy tests, Step 4—Test effectiveness in practice settings, and Step 5—Disseminate program findings and materials (p. 463). Given the uniqueness and comprehensiveness of intervention research and also that our profession publishes much about social work interventions and program/practice evaluations (Holosko, 2013; Holosko, Hamby, & Pettus, 2013), I concur with Fraser’s (2004) contention that the essential knowledge, skills, abilities, and expertise needed to conduct intervention research go well beyond the MSW and doctoral courses currently offered to our students (p. 220).

In order to guide authors who wrote submissions for this special edition, I presented a set of minimal criteria from the extant intervention research literature. These included the following:

Planned interventions—This referred to interventions that were selectively planned and targeted for specifically identified problems with clients or client systems.

Taken together, these criteria were used as a template for these authors, in particular, those denoted by an asterisk (*) above, to filter/screen, and/or define studies in a relatively homogeneous way for this special edition.

This special edition is organized according to three subsections. Subsection 1 has six articles within it, focussing on planning, developing, and analyzing interventions. These articles demonstrate the importance of thoughtful planning, thorough designs, the identification of intervention concerns, and evaluation issues—all of which are critical to implementing effective interventions. In the first article, Schwinn and colleagues present the steps involved in developing a unique web-based intervention targeted to prevent drug use among adolescent girls. Second, Webber and colleagues then present the development and modeling of complex interventions in the United Kingdom by introducing an example of such, the Connecting People Intervention. In the same vein, Charles and her colleagues present the formative steps in designing an intervention directed toward the promotion of the healthy development of children whose fathers had antisocial behavior. In the fourth article, Ell and colleagues show how the integration of a biopsychosocial intervention spearheaded by social workers was involved in changing one aspect of the health care landscape in the western part of the United States. The final two articles here relate to assessing intervention effectiveness. Pettus-Davis and colleagues present a cogent case for using randomized controlled trial (RCTs) to evaluate interventions; and finally, Hoyt and colleagues examine the important issues of change statistics in time-series interventions by assessing secondary literature published in this area.

Subsection 2 focuses on issues of treatment integrity and fidelity. As a set, these four articles serve to remind us that fidelity is as important or more important to intervention effectiveness than the actual outcomes or outputs of such studies. In the first of these articles, Corley and her colleague conduct a secondary analysis of intervention research studies, which appraise various minimal criteria to address intervention fidelity. Stergiopoulos and colleagues in Canada addressed the issue of dynamic sustainability in examining practitioner perspectives of a unique housing implementation and model of fidelity over time. Finally here, Goense and colleagues in the Netherlands identified recommendations for treatment fidelity concerns based on an assessment of the secondary literature in this area.

Each article in the final subsection reviews systematic literature on a variety of targeted interventions related to individuals, technologies, helping professionals, and parent-group training. Each of these uses a rapid evidence assessment (REA) technique, defined by the Civil Service government of the United Kingdom (2014; http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/networks/gsr/resources-and-guidance/rapid-evidence-assessment/). These four articles are considered as “quick scoping” reviews on the hierarchy of evidence assessments, which would be deemed less than an REA or a systematic review of these subject matters. The first article by Mowbray and colleague conducted a review of interventions of treatment services among older adults with substance abuse problems. Then, Chan and his colleague in Hong Kong systematically review Information and Communication Technology–enhanced social work interventions. Choi and her colleague systematically review interventions about the responses of helping professionals to intimate partner violence. Finally, Briggs and colleagues review the seminal work of Elsie Pinkston related to the efficacy of her single group training program model. Given Pinkston’s pioneering influence, on social work intervention research in North America, this edition also offers a brief dedicational tribute to her.

As an editorial aside, SAGE Publications, given their global footprint, gave me permission to publish the abstracts of articles published herein in the native language where the article was written. Therefore, in these instances, you will note two abstracts for those inclusions. I am appreciative to them for this editorial initiative.