And efficiency in practice.

This book bridges the gap between social work knowledge and empirically based practice. Although there is a significant need for the use of empirically tested and verified knowledge in social work practice, the empirical basis of support is nearly absent from practitioners'considerations as they make clinical decisions in routine practice. The authors advocate the development of readily available, accessible, and professionally sanctioned practice guidelines for use by practitioners, a necessity in the age of managed care and demands for greater accountability, effectiveness, and efficiency in practice. This book features a much-needed discussion of racial and ethnic differentials in relation to practice guidelines and on the relationship between practice guidelines and different aspects of service delivery.

A lifespan approach presenting evidence-informed interventions for working with individuals and families Social Work Practice with Individuals and Families covers assessment of and intervention with children, adolescents, adults, the elderly, and families. It offers an array of pedagogical features within each chapter, as well as online resources and review questions at the conclusion of each chapter to help guide critical thinking about topics. Reflecting the current state of evidence-informed social work practice, each chapter's contributors emphasize the incorporation of wider forms of systematically collected data such as case studies, best or promising practices, and consumer-focused data. Reading this book will not only give readers the tools to work effectively with individuals and families, but also develop their skills in evidence informed practice. Comprehensive and insightful, Social Work Practice with Individuals and Families is a student- and practitioner-friendly text identifying the best assessment tools and strategies available for social workers to successfully serve individuals and families facing a broad range of challenges.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

/*0205446175, Sheafor, Techniques and Guidelines for Social Work Practice, 7e*/The latest edition of this classic book continues to provide students and practitioners of social work with a one-of-a-kind resource designed to emphasize the different techniques needed for successful practice. Carefully updated to provide social workers with easy access to the most current information on professional techniques and guidelines and organized to support a generalist practice perspective, Techniques and Guidelines for Social Work Practice illustrates multiple ways in which both direct and indirect intervention activities are a part of the social worker's repertoire. Touching upon everything from cultural competence to macro practice, the content of this text is so widely applicable it is an invaluable aid in making the transition to a professional career in social work and a staple of professional social work libraries. In a classroom, it is ideal for use in advanced practice, capstone, and field work courses. Parts I and II summarize the essential foundation elements of social work practice, while Parts III through V set out 157 clearly described techniques and guidelines that can be used by students and new practitioners. The latest edition includes many changes that make it just as essential as previous editions. Techniques deleted from prior editions due to space restrictions are now available at www.ablongman.com/sheafor7e. New techniques include guidelines for assessing small group functioning, family group conferencing, and building mentoring relationships, as well as addressing client concerns related to spirituality and religion and serving the client or community experiencing an emergency or disaster. Following the lessons of 9/11, new content is included to prepare social workers to deal a client or community emergency. Information is included on Family group conferencing, a new approach based on the principles of restorative justice about which social workers should be knowledgeable. New guidelines for using mentoring relationships, in which senior practitioners without direct administrative responsibilities support and nurture developing social workers, are included in this edition, along with new guidelines for assessing small group functioning as a means of strengthening subsequent intervention activities with groups. Chapter 14 now includes a straight-forward description of techniques for conducting empirical direct practice evaluation with current illustrations based on students' applications of the most commonly used evaluation tools.

When social workers draw on experience, theory, or data in order to develop new strategies or enhance existing ones, they are conducting intervention research. This relatively new field involves program design, implementation, and evaluation and requires a theory-based, systematic approach. Intervention Research presents such a framework. The five-step strategy described in this brief but thorough book ushers the reader from an idea's germination through the process of writing a treatment manual, assessing program efficacy and effectiveness, and disseminating findings. Rich with examples drawn from child welfare, school-based prevention, medicine, and juvenile justice, Intervention Research relates each step of the process to current social work practice. It also explains how to adapt interventions for new contexts, and provides extensive examples of intervention research in fields such as child welfare, school-based prevention, medicine, and juvenile justice, and offers insights about changes and challenges in the field. This innovative pocket guide will serve as a solid reference for those already in the field, as well as help the next generation of social workers develop skills to contribute to the evolving field of intervention research.

This interdisciplinary book presents a comprehensive conceptual and methodological treatment of intervention research, a developing area of empirical inquiry that aims to make research more directly relevant and applicable to practice. Intervention Research contains original chapters by the most highly regarded scholars in the field. These experts explain how to distinguish intervention research from other modalities, demonstrate a new model of research for the design and development of interventions, and provide guidelines for conducting intervention research in practice with individuals, families, and community organizations. Providing useful observations and a wealth of ideas, authors offer conceptual schemes, results from recent design and development studies, and strategies and methodologies to help professionals make their research more usable and meaningful. Chapters cover such important topics as the acquisition of relevant knowledge, meta-analysis in intervention research, methods and issues in designing and developing interventions, and field testing and evaluating innovative practice interventions. The book depicts intervention research through case illustrations and promotes the use of new technologies for developing innovative practice methods. Intervention Research focuses on Intervention Design and Development--the part of intervention research involving the creation of reliable, practical tools of social intervention in user-ready form. It sets forth systematic procedures for designing, testing, evaluating, and refining needed social technology and for disseminating proven techniques and programs to professionals in the community. Intervention Research has a base in social work, but is highly interdisciplinary. Authors contributing to this text come from a variety of fields, including psychology, sociology, education, information science, and communications. Professors and educators working in schools of public health, education, urban planning, nursing, and public administration, or teaching courses in psychology, sociology, or upper-level social work, will find this book full of comprehensive and practical information that is advantageous for their work.