Effectiveness of social work is core to social work service

Social work service needs effectiveness to ensure providing the appropriate

intervention. Social work is a program that all its service should be conducted in a

scientific setting, which based on a worldview and followed by certain rules as

paradigm. Social work researchers can make a valuable contribution to their research

through learning empirical interventions, continuing to adapt them, and researching

their effectiveness in school settings and develop them. Social work researcher who

makes this effort is to make their service effective (Lipsey & Wilson, 2001).

Due to the fact that theory is a set of a statement about the relationship (s)

between two or more concepts or constructs (Jaccard & Jacoby, 2010) and models are

a special type of theory (Coombs, Dawes, & Tversky, 1970; Kaplan, 1964; Jaccard &

Jacoby, 2010), it enables social work researchers to think logically and critically by

examining those relationships between concepts and constructs. Theory and model

building is like a mind-map, through which we, both researchers and practitioners are

clear about where we are and where to go. For example, if we wish to know the poor

people and expect to provide to what those people need, first and foremost we should

do with is to know what problems poor people are facing, how do they become poor,

how many are they etc. by refereeing to studies that contains a lot of information for

research synthesis and designing the effective intervention. Researchers gain

quantitative data and qualitative text (Gilgun, 2005) from research participants

according to the components of theory and model.

To make sure we can obtain the components that provides social work with
effectiveness, we need to think what our clients’ situation are, we need a lance that

people is in environment/situation (PIE). We also need our intervention stick to social

work values, such as social justice, dignity etc. to fulfill social work ethnics, and we

need to perceive the relationship within clients’ context such as family, organization,

community and historical background, we also need reflexibility to refine our service

and consider what other possible components are necessary and can be

added/deducted into the service to enhance the social work intervention. Theories and

models are helpful for framing a broad picture and segmenting it into concepts and

relationships. We hope through using models, key components of human behaviors

and social environment are addressed, and we can really help solve people’s

problems, promote social justice, advocate policy change, build up capacity for

clients, as well as develop effective model in order to provide better service next time.

Why social work researchers are so enthusiastically concerned the effectiveness

of service? The reason is that social work is rooted on values, relationships, PIE and

reflexibility, which are foundations of social work’s unique purpose and perspectives.

With effectiveness, social workers fulfill their responsibilities (NASW). Social work

is not like economy or sociology. To my understanding, those are domains which

require summary from human behavior and create theory. They start from human

behavior but end up with creating abstractive theories, and they aim at explaining

human behavior rather than change or help it change. Whereas social work is to

intervene the real life of people, help them to change, providing resources to facilitate

the change. If there is no change, or not effective change, then social workers loose
their sense of doing the right job.

How to generate effective social work intervenes? We need to borrow the idea

from theory and models, such as Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), Common Factors

Model, Mathematical model, Logic model, Ground theory etc. For example Evidence-

based Practice takes the first place as it is a movement that’ s purpose is to encourage

the inclusion of research in practice to improve practice and to discourage

interventions that do not work or that have damaging effects (Gilgun, 2010). EBP

refers to scientific knowledge about clinical practices and interventions (Hoagwood,

2003-2004). Practicing from an EBP framework involves appraising evidence for

effectiveness prior to implementing interventions with clients and evaluating the

outcomes. EBP helps social work researcher to recognize within multiple and

potentially perplexing directives to find what is the “best practice” which also means

that the practice is of effectiveness. Identifying evidence-based practices/interventions

can be one helpful way to narrow in on useful strategies. Other theory and models are

useful in terms of connecting social work research and social work practice. For

instance, Common Factor Model identifies “common factors” such as clients’ factors,

practitioner factors, relationship factors etc. to help a service or intervene to be better

understood and better implemented. Identifying those factors is the work which would

be done by researchers and practitioners collaboratively. But if we want to improve

those models, in other words, to enhance social work effectiveness, and to provide

best service, researchers and practitioners should work together to build the best

practice. Researchers devote to the model building, and practitioners apply them for
an effective service, their work goes hand in hand.

Now we know what social work effectiveness is, why we should enhance social

work effectiveness, and how to achieve effectiveness. Those are basic components for

understanding social work effectiveness, but to explain social work effectiveness

better, we also need imaginative ideas which fit.

Reference

Coombs, C., Dawes, R., & Tversky, A. (1970). Mathematical psychology: An

elementary introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Early, T. J., & Vonk, M. E. (2001). Effectiveness of school social work from a risk and
resilience perspective. Children & Schools,23, 9-32.

Gilgun, Jane. F (2010). The nature of practice in evidence-based practice. Running

head: evidence-based practice. Presented at the Theory Construction And Research
Methodology Pre-Conference Workshop, National Council On Family Relations,
Minneapolis, Minnesota.

James, J., & Jacoby J. (2010). Theory construction and model-building skills: A
practical guide for social scientists. New York: Guilford.

Kaplan, A. (1964). The conduct of inquiry. San Francisco: Chandler.

Lipsey, M. W., & Wilson, D. B. (2001). Practical meta-analysis (Vol. 49). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage

Code of Ethics of the NASW. Approved by the 1999 NASW Delegate Assembly and
revised by the 2008 NASW Delegate Assembly.
http://www.naswdc.org/pubs/code/code.asp.

Gilgun, Jane F. (2005). Qualitative research and family psychology. Journal of

Family Psychology, 19(1), 40-50.