Ethical considerations of evidenced based practice

Evidence-based practice has become an important approach to social work practice. This paper highlights some of the ethical dilemmas which may be implicated by this approach, and encourages social workers and social work researchers to carefully consider these potential quandaries.

2009

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a relatively recent incarnation in social work's long history of valuing evidence as a basis for practice. Few argue with the ethics and usefulness of grounding practice in empirically tested interventions. Critics of EBP instead focus on how it is defined and implemented. Critiques include what counts as evidence, who makes decisions regarding research agendas and processes, and the lack of attention to context. This essay reflects on such critiques and suggests that social work, as a profession that values human diversity, equality, and self-determination, is well situated to shed light on such debates about EBP. As a profession that supports a person-in-environment perspective, we must examine not only the theory but the practice of EPB in academic, institutional, and societal settings. It is also argued that, owing to our professional mission, it is not enough to acknowledge the risk of oppression and harm; we are obligated to take them seriously and include such potential for harm in our assessment of so-called best practices. Keywords: Evidence-based practice, Social work ethics, Social work profession, Standards of Evidence, Social work values, Research, Research Ethics

Social Work & Society, 2010

2009

Evidence-based practice is a subject fraught with controversy within social work circles but the debates it engenders are enriching and worthwhile for a profession like social work which prides itself on its value-driven, ethical practice. We have debated the issues among ourselves and have explored all sides of the debate, at times, bogged down in a quagmire and at other times liberated by the new ideas these debates unleashed. And certain people have been an invaluable catalyst and support along the way. We would especially like to thank all those people who so willingly responded to our requests for information and clarification and would like to mention in particular . They, along with many others cited in this book, have made an invaluable contribution to contemporary ideas about evidence-based social work and its workability or not. Even its staunchest advocates are seriously grappling with issues of translation and implementation and how to increase the uptake of evidence-based social work by human service agencies, including managers and

The purpose of this article is to place evidence-based practice within its wider scholarly contexts and draw lessons from the experiences of other professions that are engaged in implementing it. The analysis is based primarily on evidence-based medicine, the parent discipline of evidence-based practice, but the author also draws on evidencebased nursing and evidence-based social work in the United Kingdom. It was found that the experiences of other practice professions have a great deal to offer social work practice. Similar to medicine, nursing, and our British colleagues, U.S. social work practice will benefit from increased research activity, more widespread availability of reviews of research, on-line resources, and many more training opportunities. Similar to nursing administrators, social work administrators have the responsibility to allow social work practitioners the time and training to become familiar with research relevant to their practice.

Journal of Social Work, 2006

• Summary: Many of the profession are pursuing ways to develop and promote good and accountable practice. One of the most popular courses suggested is evidence-based practice. Locating our discussion within the context of neo-liberalism, we argue here that evidence-based practice has arisen not only in response to the ongoing desire to promote scientific practice, but also to increase social work’s ‘fit’ with the current context. • Findings: We conclude that social work is an extremely complex set of activities and that evidence-based practice is too conceptually narrow and theoretically limited, particularly in its constrained capacity to take up many of the developments in social theory. Finally, we suggest that the conceptual objectives of evidence-based practice can be met by the integration of ethical reasoning in practice, which we suggest is a strategy of mature professionalism that can be more readily applied in the diverse contexts and forms of social work practice. • Applications: The ethical intent (and indeed, the cognitive discipline) of evidence-based practice can equally be realized through deployment of ethical reasoning as a mode of good practice.

Evidence-based practice (EBP) continues to be a widely debated and tentatively accepted movement in social work. Although there is a great deal of discussion of evi-dence-based practice within the professional literature, mainstream social work seems to be generally unaltered by this movement. This paper explores the history and evolution of social work knowledge development and the relationship between social work knowledge and practice in the context of the evidence-based practice movement. Evidence-based practice can be a useful framework to guide social work toward meeting the challenges of the profession, more effectively helping our clients and being better positioned to confront social problems. Adopting evidence-based practice will not be easy; there are a number of challenges, implications and choices that need to be considered. Critically considering evidence-based practice in the field of social work will put us in a better position to evaluate how we practice, and challe...

PRAXIS, 2007

Evidence-based practice (EBP) continues to be a widely debated and tentatively accepted movement in social work. Although there is a great deal of discussion of evidence-based practice within the professional literature, mainstream social work seems to be generally unaltered by this movement. This paper explores the history and evolution of social work knowledge development and the relationship between social work knowledge and practice in the context of the evidence-based practice movement. Evidence-based practice can be a useful framework to guide social work toward meeting the challenges of the profession, more effectively helping our clients and being better positioned to confront social problems. Adopting evidence-based practice will not be easy; there are a number of challenges, implications and choices that need to be considered. Critically considering evidence-based practice in the field of social work will put us in a better position to evaluate how we practice, and challenge us to do better.

Pearson, 2012

The Ethical Foundations of Social Work provides an easy-to-grasp, theoretical rigorous and practice-based grounding in social work ethics. The authors first examine when, how and why principles and debates historically emerged, then explicitly map them onto everyday ethical challenges and situations in social work practice. As such, the book promotes an ethically conscious approach where principles can be flexibly and confidently applied as tools for critical problem solving.

Research on Social …, 2009

The implementation of evidence-based practice (EBP) as a professional model of practice for social work has been suggested as one approach to support informed clinical decision making. However, different barriers and processes have been identified that ...