Evidence-Based Practice: Selection, Implementation, and Practice Issues

Catalog description

This course prepares students to critically assess and reflect on evidence-based practice theory, principles, and practice issues as they relate to social work. Students will integrate knowledge of assessment and clinical treatment theories with the growing research and science base of evidence-based practice. The course will focus on multiple levels of evidence-based practice promotion including the individual level, the programmatic and agency level, and the broader market place contexts. In the beginning of the course, students will be introduced to the history and background of the evidence-based practice movement, including definitions and terms. Students will also examine how to incorporate strategies optimizing client needs and circumstances into the EBP decision-making process, and to think critically about how to ensure that their practice adheres to social work values and ethics. Students will learn issues and strategies for locating, selecting, and evaluating EBP practice research, including the selection of EBPs tailored to a specific client or population. On the programmatic and agency levels, students will examine core implementation components and challenges (e.g., planning, educating, financing, restructuring, managing quality, attending to policy) commonly faced in agency practice by clinicians, supervisors and administrators. As students are exposed to the implementation science literature and research, they will appreciate how key multilevel implementation approaches can be designed and applied to promote health and behavioral health innovation on both the prevention and intervention levels. Finally, students will review that EBP landscape from a broader perspectives including prevention science, and the diffusion of innovations, examining important controversies and market trends that influence and impact contemporary evidence-based practice in social work. Prereq: Advanced Standing or ( SASS 504 and SASS 507 and SASS 508 and SASS 509 ).