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This article views social work education as fundamentally a knowledge implementation enterprise. It proposes principles, partnerships, and strategies through which schools can advance evidence-based practice in social work. Such strategies should meet five criteria: They must be deliberate and strategic, they should be knowledge based, they should reflect the complexity of social work practice, they should capitalize on school and agency core activities and resources, and they should build on natural partnerships inherent in professional education. Their savvy and ingenuity in leveraging existing resources may be the key to schools' success in preparing social work professionals for evidence-based practice.

This article focuses on factors proposed as necessary to move social work toward the development of more and better research. These factors include, first, research-supportive climates in schools of social work: Schools of social work need to ensure that the conduct of research is valued, time for its conduct is protected, and individual and organizational resources undergird it. Second, social work researchers require stronger connections to researchers in other disciplines, to practice settings, and to potential funders of research. Third, new levels of competence are required if social work researchers are to address increasingly complex social and interpersonal problems. Social work investigators must be well trained to use existing methods and to develop new methodologies. Implications are discussed for social work education.

Social workers must first adopt for themselves new, healthier expectations, and then instill them in parents to help a child acquire adaptive behavior

As evidence-based practice is increasingly accepted in social work, the challenges associated with its actual implementation become more apparent and pressing. This article identifies implementation as a critical issue for research; implementation itself must be better understood if evidence-based practices are to be used and resultant improvements to practice are to be realized. Social work needs to engage more fully in (a) service system research and (b) implementation research, each of which complements and has potential to extend the benefits of efficacy and effectiveness research. Service system research can enhance the fit of empirically supported treatments to the needs of real-world practice and thus facilitate their implementation. Implementation studies examine the acceptability of evidence-based interventions, the feasibility and likelihood of their sustained use, and the decision-support procedures that can help practitioners apply probabilistically based, empirically supported treatments to the individual case in real-world practice.

Differences and similarities in family and child functioning by family structure were studied in a child guidance clinic population. Single-parent families showed more social–environmental stress, and remarried families showed the highest number of within-family problems. Two-parent biological families reported the fewest problems and stressors. Although some similarities among families were found, the differences shown have important implications for practice.

Objective: Studies evaluating interventions were used as data to illustrate a rudimentary prototype of practice guidelines comprising two components: a taxonomy of outcome targets, and their associated arrays of interventions. We use the data to discuss the adequacy of intervention research in social work for contributing to practice guidelines. Method: Data were all the outcomes and their associated interventions investigated and reported in 13 social work journals over a four and a half year period, totaling 126 studies. Results: The outcomes and interventions were classified according to eight outcome target domains, yielding the practice guidelines prototype. The research was unevenly distributed across the eight target domains, and a pattern of `single outcome-single intervention'design was evident across all target domains. Conclusions: Data suggest insufficient attention to comparative evaluation of interventions and to assessing effectiveness across client populations and service settings, and need for better-designed and prioritized intervention research overall.

Cover -- Half Title -- Copyright Page -- Title Page -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- Youth Entering an Emergency Shelter Care Facility: Prior Involvement in Juvenile Justice and Mental Health Systems -- Physician-Patient Gender and the Recognition and Treatment of Depression in Primary Care -- Reactivity and Responsiveness in Children's Service Systems -- The Dynamics of Interagency Collaboration: How Linkages Develop for Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Sectors in a System of Care Demonstration -- Youth and Provider Perspectives on Social Service Providers' Roles in Mental Health Services -- Depression Treatment and Cost Offset for Rural Community Residents with Depression -- Index.

This article presents a methodology for measuring the adequacy of care. Little attention has been given to how well services, both informal and formal, come together to meet the specific needs of dependent elderly in-home care. The measure of adequacy of care derives from an assessment of need and assistance received in 14 activities of daily living. In each activity area where the elderly need assistance, assessments are made of the quantity and quality of care received from formal and informal sources. This information is then used to produce several scores. Information for the measure can be denved from either self-report by the elderly or from professional assessment. The scores are useful to social workers for both clinical and research purposes