Using Program Evaluation to Introduce an Evidence Informed Practice Model to Clinical Social Work

The necessity for clinical social work practitioners to utilize an evidence informed approach to their work is clear. SSWR helped draw attention to this need with John Brekke's 2011 Aaron Rosen lecture “The Science of Social Work” and the subsequent discussions from social work researcher/scholars. But translating this into routine clinical practice is not easy as clinicians can be reluctant to give up their old ways of devising treatment goals, tracking progress, and evaluating outcomes. Grant funded program evaluation offers social work researchers a unique opportunity to introduce clinicians to the concept of using empirical measurement to develop intervention plans, monitor treatment, and help clients see progress. Our work also shows how grant-funded program evaluation can be leveraged for capacity building to help agencies build sustainable data cultures. The purpose of this roundtable is to encourage a discussion about using program evaluation to introduce the concept of evidence informed care by sharing our journey through three successive projects in accomplishing these goals.

We will present for discussion our successes and challenges, including using clinician data collectors, making evaluation data useful to clinical work, and creating usable sustainable systems for data collection and use. Over the course of implementing several grant funded program evaluations in the community mental health context, we developed tools that would build agencies' capacity for data use and evaluation. We used a web based online offline tool to allow agency staff to collect data and quickly get clinically relevant results that were used as part of care planning. This data was also available to the agency for continuing quality improvement and to share with stakeholders or other funders to promote their programs. Challenges existed where the needs of the evaluation and the needs of the agency were not perfectly aligned. We also discuss our strategies for engaging staff and management at agencies.

Our presenters are researchers and project management staff that played crucial roles in the implementation in each of the three projects by engaging with agency staff to instill a data-informed culture. Our first presenter will introduce the need for data-informed care in social work practice more broadly, and discuss how federal grant funding provides an important tool for organizational transformation at the systems level. Another presenter will discuss the process of getting buy-in from agency leadership and frontline staff, challenges the team faced, and the technological tools developed to promote data use. A third presenter will discuss her reflections as a clinician in one of the partner agencies who now works on the research side of the evaluation. The presenters will also discuss how their experiences highlight concepts from organizational theory, implementation science, and data use theory, including the importance of organizational champions in adopting change, the impact of the political and funding context, and the interpretive process of how practitioners use data in decision-making. Presenters will engage participants in discussion on ways to move the profession in this direction and how participants could implement these ideas in the communities or clinics they work.

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