Abstract
Social work is often regarded as a phenomenon strongly oriented to national contexts. However, global developments and challenges impact social work practice all over the world. Worldwide developments like growing migration movements, globalization, demographic change, and aggravating economic situations result in changing life and work environments and the risk of increasing social inequality.
These changes challenge social work as a practice-based profession as well as an academic discipline, targeting the support of individuals and groups in order to achieve social coherence, empowerment, and liberation. In this context, social work acts based on principles like social justice, human rights, and respect for diversities (International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW], 2014).
Facing such challenges, social work practitioners require the best available evidence to face global impacts on the local level and implement theories of social work in the best interest of the addressees.
The concept of evidence-based practice (EBP) became highly influential in social work in the Anglo-American area. Although empirical clinical practice was developed by social workers Jayaratne and Levy (1979) and was discussed in social work for a while (Reid, 1994), it fell into oblivion afterward. It reappeared as evidence-based medicine and spread to the adjoining professions in the social sector. Since social work in the United States is traditionally closely interwoven with the health system, EBP was quickly absorbed in research and practice there. The history of the profession in the German-speaking area differs a lot from the situation in the United States. Traditionally, social work rooted in poor relief during the middle ages and developed toward an institutionalized public support system with strong influence from the social pedagogic movement and a growing academic aspiration. Hammerschmidt and Tennstedt (2012, p. 74) identify the aim to overcome social problems emerging from class conflicts as the overarching aim for public social support.
Professionalization attempts comprised a differentiation of care and a developing specialist training for women who were mainly engaged in care and welfare services. In the 1970s, social work training was admitted as an academic discipline at universities of applied sciences. Until today, the studies emphasize a high degree of practice combined with theoretical studies as well as research training for future social workers. Lacking the right to award doctorates among universities of applied sciences, the research education has long been neglected and marginalized in the curriculum (Engelke et al., 2009).
With increasing attempts to promote social work as a scientific discipline during the 1990s, research activities of social work in the German-speaking area increased and became more and more visible, even on an international level. Today, a growing number of doctorates among social workers exist and the research landscape broadened significantly.
Against this background, the discourse around EBP in the German-speaking area rose with increasing research activities (see also Ghanem et al., 2017) and comprises a vivid debate about the value and acquirement of evidence in social work, how to generate and incorporate evidence into professional practice, education, and theory building as well as what kind of evidence is beneficial for developing the practice and the discipline (Borrmann & Thiessen, 2016).
The core debate boils down to the question about effects and effectiveness of social work interventions. The classic “what works” agenda is strongly contested and understood as an attempt to de-professionalize social work and as an increase of control aiming political–administrative forces. In this sense, EBP is perceived as a controversial issue among social work scholars in the German-speaking area.
EBP suggests identifying the best available evidence as a basis for interventions. Accordingly, EBP first assesses carefully the need and sets explicit and commensurable goals for the treatment. Empirical literature serves as a source for finding the best accessible methods. Best accessible in this context means that the effect of interventions on the present problem is scientifically validated. The clear and measurable formulation of treatment goals allows for a systematic evaluation of the outcome and assessment of the treatment. Based on this, the addressee is granted the appropriate and sufficient treatment needed (McNeece & Thyer, 2004). This also involves to provide relevant information about impact, effect, and alternatives to the client, allowing an informed decision about which treatment to accept (Mullen, 2014).
What counts as best available knowledge relates to its scientific genesis. McNeece and Thyer (2004) introduce a hierarchy of research methods representing the gold standard for research by covering conclusive and sound evidence for practice, starting from systematic reviews and meta-analyses followed by randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies. Furthermore, case-control and cohort studies, preexperimental group studies, and surveys complete the ranking, ending with qualitative studies.
Also, the ethical codices issued by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW, 2017) and the IFSW demand the best available treatment based on scientific scrutiny, informed consent, and critical evaluation of services. So, what can possibly be wrong with EBP and why should social work not follow it?
Opponents of the approach challenge it particularly from the field of education and social work, arguing against the narrow concept of the best available knowledge and the alleged technocratic style of interventions based on it (Biesta, 2007; Otto et al., 2009; Webb, 2001). Concerns stress that EBP ignores the complex context of social case work when following its heuristic. The human factor seemingly lacks in utilizing evidence-tested procedures under controlled conditions. It is questioned whether controlled experiments can be transferred to the real-world situation of clinical practice. Social workers opposing EBP strongly doubt the emphasis of assessing of their practice solely by the outcome of their intervention as this would ignore the collaborative character of the joint enterprise of professional and addressee.
Against this background and the particular history of the profession, concerns of social workers in the German-speaking areas connect to the international debate about EBP, asking for the worth and value as well as for the transferability, appropriateness, and sufficiency of the EBP paradigm for social work.
Yet there is also a positive reception of EBP surfacing in this debate. It offers the chance to promote the science of social work and the development of a sound and unique knowledge base for social work as a discipline (Ferguson, 2003; Otto et al., 2009; Sommerfeld, 2016).
Regarding the professionalization and development as an academic discipline, social work in the German-speaking area focused a lot on theoretical discussions, struggling to find its foundation as a scientific discipline. If the profession is able to assimilate EBP for developing its scientific and practical profile, the approach offers promising aspects as suggested for instance by Gilgun (2005). She advocates an EBP in social work, resting on four cornerstones such as (1) research and theory, (2) practice wisdom, (3) the person of the practitioner, and (4) the perspective of the addressees. Beside testing evidence against reality and incorporate adequately in it, she suggests seeing evidence in itself as a provisional construct open to modification if new knowledge occurs. New knowledge in this context also comprises knowledge derived from the clinical situation and the interaction between individuals involved, acknowledging their subjectivity and personal circumstances. McNeece and Thyer (2004) add that utilizing the best available knowledge means to unite it with the social worker’s clinical skills and the clients’ preferences. Thus, EBP in social work is by no means limited to the question of what works but to create and apply the unique knowledge derived from the practice reality of social work. If research and practice are able to collaborate, a characteristic and relevant knowledge can be created in a circular relationship between both realms (Göppner & Hämäläinen, 2004), connected by the common interest of getting the best evidence to support addressees and clinical social workers for their collaboration.
In this sense, looking over the rim of national social work systems is also beneficial to gain a deeper and broader understanding of the problems and possibilities in social work. Scrutinizing local practices allows to identify effects of global changes on the spot as well as ways of implementing global concepts such as human rights and social justice. Accordingly, researching regional phenomena contributes to a better understanding of social work and its aspects on a larger scale—a national focus servers as a feasible perspective for international knowledge exchange and learning.
In this regard, the present special issue of the Journal Research on Social Work Practice combines a selection of empirical studies, mapping the current research landscape in social work in German-speaking countries. It comprises studies convinced by EBP and its potential for social work, setting successful examples for the benefit of scientific sound evidence for social work practice.
The chosen contributions address methods and strategies of social work practice, evaluating their effects and identifying social work practice as well as the implementation of methods in diverse fields of social work.
The first paper, by Baumgardt, Daubmann, and Röh, is based on an exploratory study targeting determinants of capabilities in the field of community-based clinical social work. The study comprises two measuring points questioning people with chronic mental disorders regarding capabilities, psychosocial, sociodemographic, disease-, and care-related aspects and results in a path model showing empowerment and social inclusion as significant elements for advancing capabilities.
The second paper, by Bördlein and Sander, concerns a partial replication of a study about the effect of habit reversal to improve public speaking among students, initially conducted by Mancuso and Miltenberger. Embedded in a student project, the study targeted the question of feasibility of EBP for unexperienced practitioners, and the study elucidates a successful implementation of such methods in a student project.
The next article, by Braun, Gantz, Heidenreich, and Laging, draws on an evaluation study about transferring an existing U.S.-American online prevention program targeting hazardous alcohol consumption among students to the German context. Applying a mixed-methods approach of qualitative focus groups and a quantitative evaluation, the results indicate a successful adaptation and implementation of the program in the German context.
Getting insight into what quality means in social work is the aim of the research conducted by Lorenz, Fargion, Nothdurfter, Nagy, Berger, Rainer, and Frei. From the point of view of the main stakeholders such as service users, social workers, and managers, the authors conducted a mixed-methods approach to identify the most important aspects of quality in the context of social service provisions. With particular emphasis on the perspective of the main stakeholders, the research group identified dimensions of quality in social services. The results flew into practice recommendations for ensuring quality with regard to the expectations of concerned parties in the process.
Andrea Fleckinger’s paper displays the results of her analysis of the relations between mothers and child protection workers in cases of gender-based violence. The qualitative research project focused on the risk of secondary victimization, revealing the influence of victim–offender dynamics on social work practices.
The paper by Wesenberg, Frank, de Andrade, Weber, Rosemeier, Krause-Lanius, and Gahleitner addresses issues with therapeutic residential groups for adolescents. Applying multiple methodologies of qualitative and quantitative research, the research group evaluated the treatment in the residential groups in order to identify process and outcome quality of the treatment. The article presents selected results from the quantitative part of the study as well as the qualitative interviews conducted.
In the seventh contribution, Haunberger, Rüegger, and Baumgartner report the outcome of their control group study regarding the effect of social counseling on the quality of life, psychosocial burden, and the sense of coherence among families of children with cancer. They compared two different social diagnostic methods, one based on descriptive system modeling (the intervention group) and one focused on the family resources (S-FIRST, the control group), but found only few significant effects. However, significant effects were found with moderating variables like the child’s health status.
The paper of James, Kilian, Seidel, and Trostmann reports the data of their qualitative study of the labor market integration of 27 young adult refugees who participated in a program to transmit young adult refugees into vocational education training. Seventy percentage of the participants who completed the program entered the vocational education training. Insights about the importance of a better alignment of participants to programs and the importance of the mentoring relationship in the program are discussed.
Knoop and Meyer’s contribution compares the rehabilitation outcome of social work interventions in medical rehabilitation on the functioning domains of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. They used the data of over 70,000 individuals admitted to medical rehabilitation. Interestingly, rehabilitation patients receiving social work interventions had a worse self-reported rehabilitation outcome compared to the control group. The authors discuss the plausible reasons for this result.
In the final paper, about home visiting work, Müller, Bräutigam, and Lüngen present a reflection model for practitioners in home visiting services. In their mixed-methods study, they report descriptive data from 888 practitioners who filled out the “Home Treatment Questionnaire” about their perception of their work in home visiting and the results of six group interviews. Among others, their results stress the importance of empathic and understanding relationships in home visiting and the advantages and hazards of home visiting.
The articles reflect the varied situation of social work in German-speaking countries and how research about EBPs is struggling to live up to this situation. However, the blind spots regarding the effects of social work in German-speaking countries are enormous. Although it might be desirable that practitioners of social work become researchers or at least open-minded against EBPs, we cannot wait for this to appear by itself. Researcher and research-minded scholars in these countries are called upon to fill the gaps in research about the effects of social work. Among others, more research is needed about the effects of social work’s core approaches case, community, and group work as well as their target social problems and the lifeworlds of clients.
With a broader basis of evidence supporting practices in social work in German-speaking countries, hopefully EBP moves to mainstream. Unsupported practices and authority-based practitioners (see Gambrill, 2012) which provide no real help for their clients or even harm them should be whipsawed by a growing awareness that decisions should be based on evidence and rational arguments. This seems to be essential if social work really wants to live up to its own vision of helping and acting based on the principles of social justice, human rights, and respect for diversities.
