Session: Ensuring Healthy Youth Development through Strengths-Based Assessment: Measurement Tools for Evidence-Informed Practice (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

Evidence-based decision making is a critical component of effective social work practice (Gambrill, 2012). Practitioners need high-quality assessments to make accurate, efficient, and clinically useful practice decisions (Jenson-Doss, 2015; Simmons & Lehmann, 2012). Strengths-based assessments have received much less attention when compared to the amount of time and energy devoted to developing and studying assessments that measure symptoms, deficits, and pathology (e.g. Snyder & Lopez, 2009; LeBuffe, Shapiro, & Naglieri, 2009). Recently, researchers have called for increased focus on strengths-based assessment to improve clinical practice (e.g. Berg, 2009; Bird, 2015). In order to ensure healthy development for all youth and live up to social work practice ideals of evidence-informed and strength-based practice, we need a deeper inquiry into the measurement of strengths in routine social work practice.

This symposium presents a series of papers that examine strength-based screening and assessment in behavioral health and school settings. These three projects collectively ask questions about the psychometric properties and practicality of strength-based measurement, with direct implications for social work practice.

The first presentation explores the prevalence of strengths across groups (e.g., gender, age, and race), among youth entering a large, urban public behavioral health system. Using administrative data collected through the Children and Adolescent Needs and Strengths Assessment (CANS; Lyons, 2009) at intake, this study finds that strengths are common for youth entering care. There appear to be many similarities in strengths by gender and age, but these analyses suggest racial differences in the assessment of strengths that would benefit from attention in future work.

The second presentation assesses the reliability, validity, and utility of a universal, strength-based screening tool, the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment Mini (DESSA-Mini; LeBuffe et al., 2011), in routine practice. Data from a district-wide project in Pennsylvania suggest that the DESSA-Mini, filled out by teachers in less than 1 minute, meets the commonly accepted criteria for internal reliability, sensitivity, specificity, and correct classification rates.

The third presentation explores the extent and nature of rater bias in the completion of behavior rating scales.  Through a district-wide project in northern California, the shared variance in student assessment scores attributable to teachers is examined. For example, findings suggest that the extent to which teachers anticipated that the implementation of a new Social Emotional Learning intervention would be challenging biased teacher assessments of student strengths.    

In order to most effectively promote healthy development among all youth, practitioners need strengths-based assessments that are efficient, accurate, and equitable. This symposium explores the measurement properties and practical utility of strengths-based assessments in routine behavioral health and education practice settings.  At the conclusion of the symposium, a discussant will comment on themes emerging from the presentation and lead a discussion on implications for practice and policy.