Back to the Future: Designing and Implementing Social Work Intervention Research

BACKGROUND & PURPOSE: Social Work intervention research involves the use of scientific methods to evaluate whether an intentional change strategy is both efficacious and effective (Fraser, Richman, Galinsky, & Day, 2009). As purposeful actions, social work interventions may target systems of all sizes (e.g., individual, family, neighborhood, organization, community). Methods for designing interventions that have the best chance of achieving successful outcomes must involve the implementation of deliberate steps for targeting a specific social problem and specifying intervention strategies that match the specific problem. Mixed-methods are important to the early stages of intervention development and testing. Fidelity criteria and methods for assessing fidelity must be constructed so that eventual tests of efficacy and effectiveness may be implemented. The purpose of this workshop is to introduce participants to the six phases of intervention design, implementation, and evaluation: problem analysis and planning, information gathering and synthesis, design, early development and testing, evaluation and advanced development, and dissemination. SESSION FORMAT & CONTENT: The educational methods will include lecture, discussion, and practice exercises. Procedures for each phase of intervention design and testing will be outlined with examples from presenters and participants, with particular emphasis on the design phase which includes the development of intervention manuals, training programs to impart requisite skills, and process measures to evaluate practitioner competence and adherence to manualized guidelines (Rounsaville, Carroll, & Onken, 2001). As a result of this session, participants will advance knowledge related to the following concepts: problem theory, theories of change, logic models, intervention manual development, fidelity criteria and assessment, and implementation science. Two models of implementation practice and research (external specialist purveyor versus the embedded generalist purveyor) will be outlined with examples (Brekke, et al, 2009). Attention will also focus on how to transfer empirically supported therapies established through clinical trials for real-life clinical practice (Connor-Smith & Weisz, 2003; Hohmann & Shear, 2002), ultimately evaluating these applications in community social work settings. Methods for adapting intervention structure and session content will be considered along with how to ensure that applied interventions are culturally congruent (Flaskerud & Nyamathi, 2000; Wu et al., 2009) with target populations. Discussion will consider the tension between maintaining fidelity and adapting to respond to varied target populations. Finally, participants will be guided in a practice session to develop specific aims and hypotheses to test the efficacy and/or effectiveness of a social work intervention based on the new NIH structured format. All participants will receive a resource and reference list on intervention research. WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES: As a result of this session, participants will achieve the following objectives: (1) understand the phases of intervention design and development; (2) gain models for articulating problem theories and theories of change and developing logic models; (3) obtain resources about the components of intervention manuals; (4) understand the general structure for developing fidelity criteria and methods for measuring them; (5) consider alternate models for developing implementation plans; (6) briefly practice developing specific aims for different stages of intervention development (e.g., pilot tests, efficacy tests, and effectiveness evaluations).