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Theories Used in Social Work

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Social workers are employed throughout a variety of settings and guide people from all walks of life. Regardless of their context, social workers can leverage some core theories and practice models to help clients throughout the industry.

Common Theories and Practice Models in Social Work

In many ways, social work is a science. Social workers can guide their clients, but they don’t carry out their practice based on their own opinion and/or style. Instead, social workers study specific clinical theories that are grounded in research to inform how they implement clinical practice in a methodological manner. In fact, clinical social workers need to obtain both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in order to fully understand these theories and master therapeutic practice models.

At its core, social work focuses on “person-in-environment” (PIE) theory. This considers clients within their psychosocial contexts, and it connects to micro, mezzo, and macro levels of social work practice. This guide explores how each theory and practice model functions within the PIE theory.

Social workers learn about these theories during their education. You can learn more about these academic programs with these resources: a guide to social work bachelor’s degrees , master’s degrees , and online master’s degrees .

Why is Theory Important in Social Work?

As any social work professor can tell you, understanding clinical theories are an essential part of a social worker’s job. It allows social workers to explore certain origins of behavior with evidence-based approaches. Social workers also lean on these theories and practices to address client problems with research to back up their practice. This is especially important, as social workers need to avoid personal assumptions or biases from interfering with effective treatment plans.

Learning about these theories can also help social workers implement effective solutions rather than grasping at straws. If a certain therapeutic approach does not work, social workers can examine the reasons and use what they’ve learned to try a different approach.

Common Social Work Theories

Social workers can incorporate components of several different clinical theories in their work with clients. Some popular approaches for social workers include theories of systems, social learning, psychosocial development, psychodynamic, transpersonal, and rational choice.

Many of these theories have been developed within the past century, and several draw upon Sigmund Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis. Some of these theories encompass a broad outlook (such as systems theory), while others focus on specific conflicts (like psychosocial theory). Not every social worker uses every theory, while some social workers might use elements of each one. You can read more information about the most common social work theories below.

Systems theory assumes that human behavior is the result of a larger system comprised of several elements, including the relationships between these elements, as well as external factors like their environment. These factors could involve a person’s family, peers, school, work, or community. Sociologists have identified many different types of systems, including microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems, and macrosystems.

Social work professionals examine how the systems in which their clients live affect their behaviors. For instance, living in a system of poverty can have a significant impact on how a person makes decisions. Social workers can devise strategies based on these systems in order to provide a more concise treatment plan for their client.

Developed by psychologist Albert Bandura in the 1970s, social learning theory accounts for how the behavior of other people can affect somebody’s behavior. Bandura argued that individuals pick up behaviors by observing and imitating the people around them. Unlike behavioral theories, social learning theory proposes that people actively and mentally process other people’s behaviors before imitating them.

Social workers may take into account social learning theory when working with children who take on aggressive or violent behaviors, for example. The children may mimic their parents or other significant adults in their lives. When social workers are able to identify the origin of a child’s behaviors, they are able to effectively create a treatment approach.

Influenced by the seminal work of Freud, psychologist Erik Erikson proposes several stages of development relating to a person’s ego identity, personal identity, and social and cultural identity. Erikson’s theory argues that humans struggle with specific conflicts throughout different stages of their life. Those conflicts include:

Trust vs. mistrust in infancy
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt in early childhood
Initiative vs. guilt in preschool age
Industry vs. inferiority in school age
Identity vs. role confusion in adolescence
Intimacy vs. isolation in young adulthood
Generativity vs. stagnation in middle adulthood
Ego integrity vs. despair in maturity

Erikson’s theory suggests that if humans effectively navigate these tensions at each stage of their life, they can develop a healthy ego. Social workers may consider these conflicts when working with their clients. It is important to note that each stage correlates with an emotional stage which could also be in conflict with a developmental stage.

Introduced by Freud at the turn of the 20th century — and popularized by Carl Jung, Melanie Klein, and Anna Freud — psychodynamic theory argues that our personalities develop because of various internal forces. Freud wrote that our personalities are largely shaped during our early childhood, and our personality consists of three main parts: id (impulse), ego (decision-making), and superego (conscience). Psychodynamic theory also prioritizes a person’s unconscious thought process as the root of their behaviors.

Social workers may use psychodynamic theory to help clients examine the underlying causes of certain behaviors — often considering the clients’ childhood — to help explain why they act a certain way. Social workers may offer different types of therapies based on psychodynamic theory, including transference and dream analysis.

Transpersonal theory approaches humans with a holistic philosophy, and considers factors like spirituality, the relationship between the body and the mind, and consciousness. Psychologists generally do not consider transpersonal theory to be scientific, but many therapists or mental health professionals integrate elements of transpersonal theory into their practice. They might use meditation, mindfulness practices, or hypnotherapy on their patients.

Rational choice theory argues that people make decisions and carry out behaviors based on their own rational thought processes, especially if those decisions ultimately benefit the individual. This theory directly opposes some other clinical theories that suggest people make decisions on unconscious thought processes.

Although rational choice theory is often found within economic theory, social workers can also apply these principles to their job. To understand why clients make certain decisions, social workers can examine how those clients believed their choices would benefit them. Social workers also can develop solutions and suggest resources to assist clients with achieving their goals.

Common Practice Models in Social Work

While social workers integrate various clinical theories into their practice, they can also implement specific therapeutic models. The theories above may explain the causes of a person’s struggles; however, practice models allow social workers to carry out specific approaches to treat those struggles.

The section below outlines some of the most common practice models, including cognitive behavioral therapy, crisis intervention model, narrative therapy, problem-solving model, solution-focused therapy, and task-centered therapy. Some of these methods overlap or share characteristics with each other, but each serves a purpose for specific clients and circumstances.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) identifies unhealthy patterns of thinking and attempts to rewrite these patterns.

People often convince themselves that their frequently distorted thoughts are true. CBT forces individuals to question and confront these distortions. For instance, somebody might find themselves in fear of social situations, because they imagine a worst-case scenario that they will humiliate themselves. CBT pushes that person to examine these assumptions and instead consider new scenarios and outlooks.

People who struggle with anxiety and depression often find CBT helpful, and many clinical social workers incorporate CBT into their therapeutic practice.

Crisis intervention model is much what it sounds like: in times of acute psychological strain or distress, social workers and mental health professionals intervene before that crisis turns into harm. Albert Roberts and Allen Ottens propose seven steps to crisis intervention. These include conducting a safety assessment, establishing psychological contact, identifying the major problems, helping the patient explore their feelings, looking for new coping mechanisms, creating an action plan, and planning follow-ups.

Social workers can use the crisis intervention model for clients suffering from major trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, or suicidal thoughts, among others. This model of crisis intervention works in a voluntary manner, which means that clients must be open to the process.

Narrative therapy is based on the theory that individuals turn their personal experiences into stories. In other words, they create narratives of their own lives. This type of therapy relies on four major principles: “objective truth” does not exist; reality is a social construct; language can influence how we view reality; and narratives help us organize our personal realities.

Narrative therapy encourages clients to distance themselves from their personal experiences by taking on the role of a narrator and rewriting the script. This can help them change harmful and disruptive thinking patterns, especially those shaped by trauma.

Helen Harris Perlman proposed the problem-solving model in the 1950s specifically for the field of social work. At the time, many social work theories and therapies relied on psychotherapy; Perlman instead argued that social workers could more effectively help clients by focusing on one problem at a time.

Focusing on smaller problems allows clients to develop and follow through with action plans to confront those issues in a manageable way. This method — also called “partializing” — would make therapies more manageable for social workers and clients alike, and professionals still use Perlman’s proposals.

Solution-focused therapy, or solution focused brief therapy, concentrates on an individual’s present and future situations. This therapy involves a departure from psychodynamic-influenced theories that focus on a person’s past and childhood.

Solution-focused therapy proposes immediate, manageable solutions that allow patients to better cope with their problems. A mental health professional or social worker employing this type of therapy might challenge a client to imagine their future life without their problem, or they might help individuals recognize and better harness copy mechanisms that they already use. Social workers might implement solution-focused therapy for adolescents with behavioral problems or families with conflicts, to name a couple of examples.

Task-centered practice shares many principles with the problem-solving model and solution-focused therapy, but it tends to follow an even more focused and quick approach. Task-centered practice usually only lasts 8-12 sessions, and clients concentrate on achieving measurable goals. Clients and social workers create action plans with specific tasks, and then clients carry out those tasks.

Social workers can integrate this type of therapy into many different types of settings. They might work with students with disruptive behavioral issues, soon-to-be-discharged hospital patients, or older clients at nursing homes.

Reviewed by:

Melissa Russiano, LCSW, LISW

Melissa Russiano is a licensed clinical social worker in private practice that has organically developed into a specialty working with helping professionals. Russiano has a proven track record helping professionals avoid burnout in a unique way that holds clinicians accountable through laughter, tears, blunt (yet very supportive) feedback and quirky analogies that are grounded in solid theoretical research. Russiano practices solely in a virtual setting in the states of California, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Additionally, Russiano is a professor imparting her experiences and knowledge in the field to future social workers in a graduate program through Simmons University online.

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Home / Social Work Resources / Theories & Practice Models Used in Social Work

Theories & Practice Models Used in Social Work

Private practices. Mental health clinics. Child welfare service agencies. Occupying a variety of professional settings, social workers are united by a shared mission: helping others live better lives.

In order to do that, they must first understand what makes their clients tick. As a social worker, studying different social work theories and social work practice models can help to bring you closer to your clients — equipping you with actionable insights that inform empathetic, evidence-based service.

Inspired by the scientific method, social work theories uncover the why of human behavior, while social work practice models reveal how you can effect change for individuals, couples, families, and communities at large.

If you’re looking for Social Work Practice Models, jump down here.

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List of Theories Used in Social Work

As a social worker, more knowledge can lead to a more informed approach, and more effective client interactions. Here, we’ll dig into decades of research to share a comprehensive set of social work theories and practice models, including:

Systems Theory

Behaviorism and social learning theory, psychodynamic theory, developmental perspective, rational choice perspective, conflict theory, ecological systems theory, family systems theory, contingency theory.

The 1950s were a decade of global innovation. From barcodes to credit cards, commercial computers to video cassette records, cutting-edge inventions were taking the stage. Around the same time, a new social work development was making its debut: systems theory.

Inspired by major advancements in the fields of psychology, communication, and psychiatry, systems theory is based on the belief that individuals don’t operate in isolation . Rather, the theory positions people as products of complex systems: influenced by a variety of external factors, including other individuals, families, communities, and organizations.

Learn more about System Theory in Social Work.

Developed by the American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner , ecological systems theory emphasizes the importance of observing people in multiple environments, or systems, to fully understand their behavior. In his theory, Bronfenbrenner outlines five distinct systems:

The microsystem is someone’s small, immediate environment. For a child, this usually includes direct family, teachers, peers, and caregivers. Relationships in the microsystem are bi-directional—for instance, a parent treating a child with kindness will likely affect how the child treats the parent in return. For this reason, some consider the microsystem to be the most influential level of the ecological systems theory.
The mesosystem consists of interactions between the different parts of a person’s microsystem. For instance, between a child’s parent and teacher. A social worker using this theory in everyday practice might ask themselves: “Are the different parts of my client’s microsystem working together towards a positive impact or working against each other?”
The exosystem is an individual’s indirect environment. Consider a child whose father is an active duty soldier. Though the military isn’t a part of that child’s direct environment, it still influences them mentally and emotionally, and can impact their thoughts, relationships, and behavior.
The macrosystem is a society’s overarching set of beliefs, values, and norms. This system often has a cascading effect on behavior in all the other systems, serving as a filter through which an individual interprets their experiences. For instance, a child might grow up thinking their socioeconomic status is a limiting factor in life. This macrosystem-level belief may cause them to behave differently in school — for positive or for negative, depending on the individual.
The chronosystem includes major changes that influence an individual’s development overtime. This could include changes in family structure, employment status, or address, as well as large societal changes like wars, civil rights movements, or economic flux.

Family systems theory was developed in the mid-1950s, while American psychiatrist Murray Bowen was working at the National Institute of Mental Health . Based on his knowledge of family patterns and systems theory, Bowen believed that the personalities, emotions, and behaviors of grown individuals could be traced back to their family interactions. The family, he suggested, is an emotional unit and can therefore play a formative role in development.

Within social work, professionals may enable families to try out different ways of doing things, such as teaching a parent on how to maintain appropriate boundaries with their child. The family is identified as a social system and therapy engages that concept to support the growth of clients.

Contingency theory explains that individual outcomes are contingent on a variety of specific situational factors. In the realm of social work, contingency theory can inspire you to seek understanding by considering all of the internal and external influences that are contributing to a client’s problem.

Systems Theory Related Resources

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) – Systems-Based Practice
Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research
The Bowen Center
The Ecology of Human Development by Urie Bronfenbrenner
Effective Social Work with Children, Young People and Families: Putting Systems Theory into Practice
GoodTherapy – Systems Theory/Therapy
New England Association for Family and Systemic Therapy (NEAFAST) – What is Systems Theory?
Psychology Today – Family Systems Theory
Systems Theory in Social Work

Behaviorism
Cognitive Theory

What drives human behavior? It’s a question that’s been asked for decades on end — and one that’s particularly relevant to the field of social work. Both behaviorism and social learning theory provide social workers with a useful framework for understanding clients.

By learning how past experiences influence present-day behavior, you can develop a research-backed approach to providing targeted care.

Social learning theory was developed by the influential Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura. In 1961, Bandura conducted his most widely known experiment: the Bobo doll study . In this experiment, children watched an adult shout at and beat a Bobo doll on television.

Later that same day, the children were left to play in a room containing a Bobo doll — and those who’d seen the film were more likely to torment the doll, imitating the behavior they’d been exposed to earlier. As a result, social learning theory posits that learning occurs through observation and imitation.

Learn more about Social Learning Theory in Social Work.

Behaviorism and Behavioral Theory

According to behaviorism, all behaviors are acquired through conditioning. By adding in a conditioned stimulus before an unconditioned stimulus that leads to an unconditioned response, the conditioned stimulus will lead to a new conditioned response. In his famous experiment, Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov conditioned dogs to produce saliva at the sound of a metronome. By consistently introducing the metronome before feeding time, he found that the sound alone would lead to salivation — in anticipation of feeding time.

Similarly, humans can be conditioned to respond to specific stimuli. For instance, a child may work harder in school if they are promised a reward for receiving good grades.

Cognitive Theory in Social Work

Cognitive theory uncovers how a person’s thinking influences behavior. This theory places emphasis on dysfunctional thought patterns that influence problematic behaviors — what we tell ourselves after an event. Social works may utilize this approach in therapy sessions to link dysfunctional thoughts that occur after and before behaviors.

Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory Related Resources

American Psychological Association (APA) – “Albert Bandura to receive National Medal of Science”
Association for Psychological Science (APS) – What Happened to Behaviorism
Berkeley Graduate Division: Graduate Student Instructor Teaching & Resource Center – Behaviorism
BMC Medical Education – Using Social Learning Theory to Explore the Process of Learning from Role Models in Clinical Settings
Psychology Today – Behaviorism
Psychology Today – Social Learning Theory
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Behaviorism
Social Learning Theory – By Albert Bandura
Social Learning Theory in Social Work
Youtube Video from The Curious Classroom – Bandura and Social Learning Theory

Drive Theory

Ego psychology, object relations theory, self psychology.

Originally introduced by Sigmund Freud, psychodynamic theory has a storied history within social work. This theory is based on Freud’s belief that humans are intra-psychologically driven to seek gratification and that these impulses largely influence our everyday behavior. Psychodynamic theory has four major schools of thought: drive theory, ego psychology, object relations theory and self-psychology.

This psychodynamic theory is based on Freud’s belief that humans are biologically driven to seek gratification of their endogenous drive — and that these impulses largely influence our everyday behavior. Per Freud, these primary drives include sex, self-preservation, and aggression. Impositions on these drives may be external or internal via superego and ego; psychic structures introduced by Freud. Social workers who approach clients with theoretical orientation on drive may posit that a client’s actions are based on an innate suppression of, otherwise, socially unacceptable actions.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), ego psychology is an approach that emphasizes the functions of the ego in controlling impulses, planning, and dealing with the external environment. Freud believed that the ego is weak in relation to one’s id. Ego psychology combines biological and psychological views of development by understanding the influences of socio cultural impacts on function.

Object-relations theory is a branch of psychodynamic thought that suggests relationships are more critical to personality development than individual drives and abilities. Accordingly, social workers may want to study the interactions between a client and the people who played a significant role in their life in early childhood.

Self psychology was introduced by Austrian psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut in the early 1970s and has since become one of social work’s most significant analytic theories. According to self psychology, humans have a distinct set of development needs and transferences: mirroring, idealizing, and alter ego. If a parent fails to meet those needs in childhood, an individual may wind up unable to regulate self-esteem — and therefore, may be overly dependent on others to provide those functions. In the realm of social work, this calls for a careful understanding of early occurrences and shortcomings.

Psychodynamic Related Resources

PsychCentral – Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic Theory – By Kathleen Holtz Deal
Psychology Today – Psychodynamic Therapy
SAMSHA/CSAT Treatment Improvement Protocols – Brief Interventions and Brief Therapies for Substance Abuse – Brief Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychosocial Development Theory

Transpersonal Theory

Growth. Change. Consistency. By adopting a developmental perspective, social workers can start uncovering the patterns of a person’s life. A large portion of developmental theories focus on childhood, since this is such a formative time.

Psychosocial Developmental Theory

Inspired by the earlier work of Sigmund Freud, German psychoanalyst Erik Erikson developed an eight-stage theory of identity and psychosocial development. According to Erikson, everyone must pass through eight stages of development throughout their life cycle: hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom. As a social worker, you may find it useful to identify a client’s current stage to pinpoint what challenges they’re currently facing.

Transpersonal theory suggests the existence of stages beyond the adult ego. These stages contribute to creativity, wisdom, and altruism in healthy individuals—but can lead to psychosis in those lacking healthy ego development. In social work, transpersonal theory may be used to treat anxiety, depression, addiction and other mental health concerns. Typically spiritual approaches as used such as meditation, guided visualization, hypnotherapy and more.

Developmental Perspective Related Resources

A Lifespan Developmental Perspective on Psychosocial Development in Midlife – By Tara L. Kuther and Kaitlyn Burnell
Liberty University – Theories of Psychosocial Development
Midlife Eriksonian Psychosocial Development: Setting the Stage for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Late Life – By Johanna C. Malone, Sabrina R. Liu, George E. Vaillant, Dorene M. Rentz, and Robert J. Waldinger
Psychosocial Theory: Erikson – By Doug Davis and Alan Clifton
Psychology Today – Our Hierarchy of Needs
Psychology Today – Transpersonal Therapy
A Review of Transpersonal Theory and Its Application to the Practice of Psychotherapy – By Mark C. Kasprow, M.D. and Bryce W. Scotton, M.D.
Social Work and Social Development – Edited By James Midgley and Amy Conley

Social Exchange Theory

Social constructionism, symbolic interactionism.

Rational choice perspective is based on the idea that people calculate risks and benefits before making any decision, since all actions are fundamentally rational in character. Studying this theory can help social workers better understand client behavior. For instance, an action that seems objectively irrational to some, may make more sense upon closer examination of the individual’s context.

Social exchange theory dates back to 1958, when American sociologist George Homans published the paper “Social Behavior as Exchange.” According to Homans, any two-person relationship can be viewed in terms of cost-benefit analysis— what am I giving, and what am I getting in return? The APA defines social exchange theory as a concern of social interactions in exchanges where all participants seek to maximize their benefits. Within social work, professionals may utilize their theory to better understand interactions with their client and others around them — diving into the intrinsic rewards they may receive.

True. False. Good. Bad. Right. Wrong. In social constructionism, these are all relative concepts, entirely dependent on the person who is interpreting them. This concept abandons the idea that one’s mind represents a mirror of reality—rather, it suggests that each of us creates our own world from our individual perceptions and interactions with others in the community.

Symbolic interactionism positions communication as the central way in which people make sense of their social worlds. American psychologist Herbert Blumer introduced three premises of symbolic interactionism:

Humans interact with objects, institutions, and other individuals based on ascribed meanings.
These ascribed meanings are inspired by our interactions with others and society.
The meanings are interpreted by individuals in specific circumstances.

Imagine, for example, that your client professes a love for baking. Adopting a lens of symbolic interactionism, you may dig deeper into the ascribed meaning behind this act. Perhaps your client makes meringues because they used to help their mother do so in childhood — and for them, escaping to the kitchen is an act of comfort and safety.

Rational Choice Perspective Related Resources

Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) – Behavior Analysis and Social Constructionism: Some Points of Contact and Departure by Bryan Roche and Dermot Barnes-Holmes
Cornell University ILR School – Social Exchange Theory of Emotions by Edward J. Lawler and Shane R. Thye
Iowa State University – Social Exchange Theory by Mark V. Redmond
Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services – Rational Choice and Routine Activities Theory
Rational Choice Theory: Advocacy and Critique – Edited by James S. Coleman and Thomas J. Fararo
What is Social Constructionism? – By Tom Andrews

Conflict theory explains how different power structures impact people’s lives. In this theory, life is characterized by conflict—whether that’s oppression, discrimination, power struggles, or structural inequality. In addressing these asymmetrical power relationships, social workers can strive to reduce tensions between different groups.

Practice Models Used in Social Work

Problem solving model.

Task Centered Practice
Solution Focused Therapy

Narrative Therapy

Cognitive-behavioral therapy, crisis intervention model.

Read on to discover how these practice models are used by social workers in a variety of settings.

Proposed by Helen Harris Perlman in her book Social Casework: A Problem-solving Process, the problem solving model. Ms. Perlman posited that “success could be achieved by partializing – or separating into manageable segments – a client’s intertwined problems and focusing on one specific issue the client and social worker agreed needed to be resolved at a given time”, according to The University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration . Utilizing this model, social workers are employed to address one concern of a client as to be resolved, at any given time. This allows for therapy for clients to be more manageable.

Task-Centered Practice

Beginning at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration, task-centered practice (TCP) is a four step process that trains social workers to work with clients in establishing specific and achievable goals based upon their concern for therapy. Through this model, social workers empower clients to drive their therapy by asking what they most want to work on to address their problems.

Solution-Focused Therapy

Solution-focused therapy was developed out of necessity, as a brief theory, in an inner city outpatient mental health setting bySteve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg and their colleagues. This approach focuses on finding solutions in the from the past, for the present — in hopes of achieving quicker problem resolution. Social workers may use this theory when focusing more on the present and future, asking questions like “What would you be doing this weekend that supports your therapy goals?”.

Narrative therapy can be an effective way of separating a client from their problems. By examining a person’s life story, this social work practice model externalizes struggles, allowing individuals to adopt a new perspective and see the bigger picture. From a distance, they may be able to reframe their situation—recognizing that their self-worth and purpose are separate from their problems. When told from a third-person perspective, a story of hardship may transform into a story of resilience.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is one of the leading treatments for many mental health conditions. This social work practice model focuses on the relationship between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors—encouraging clients to identify patterns of irrational and self-destructive thoughts and behaviors that impact emotions.

Crisis intervention includes seven stages: assess safety and lethality, rapport building, problem identification, address feelings, generate alternatives, develop a plan of action, and follow up. This social work practice model is used when someone is experiencing an acute crisis — and is commonly used with clients who are expressing suicidal intent.

If you would like to become a social worker, but are not sure what degree options are available for you, explore our list of accredited masters in social worker online programs .

Social Work Research Methods That Drive the Practice

A social worker surveys a community member.

Social workers advocate for the well-being of individuals, families and communities. But how do social workers know what interventions are needed to help an individual? How do they assess whether a treatment plan is working? What do social workers use to write evidence-based policy?

Social work involves research-informed practice and practice-informed research. At every level, social workers need to know objective facts about the populations they serve, the efficacy of their interventions and the likelihood that their policies will improve lives. A variety of social work research methods make that possible.

Data-Driven Work

Data is a collection of facts used for reference and analysis. In a field as broad as social work, data comes in many forms.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative

As with any research, social work research involves both quantitative and qualitative studies.

Quantitative Research

Answers to questions like these can help social workers know about the populations they serve — or hope to serve in the future.

How many students currently receive reduced-price school lunches in the local school district?
How many hours per week does a specific individual consume digital media?
How frequently did community members access a specific medical service last year?

Quantitative data — facts that can be measured and expressed numerically — are crucial for social work.

Quantitative research has advantages for social scientists. Such research can be more generalizable to large populations, as it uses specific sampling methods and lends itself to large datasets. It can provide important descriptive statistics about a specific population. Furthermore, by operationalizing variables, it can help social workers easily compare similar datasets with one another.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative data — facts that cannot be measured or expressed in terms of mere numbers or counts — offer rich insights into individuals, groups and societies. It can be collected via interviews and observations.

What attitudes do students have toward the reduced-price school lunch program?
What strategies do individuals use to moderate their weekly digital media consumption?
What factors made community members more or less likely to access a specific medical service last year?

Qualitative research can thereby provide a textured view of social contexts and systems that may not have been possible with quantitative methods. Plus, it may even suggest new lines of inquiry for social work research.

Mixed Methods Research

Combining quantitative and qualitative methods into a single study is known as mixed methods research. This form of research has gained popularity in the study of social sciences, according to a 2019 report in the academic journal Theory and Society. Since quantitative and qualitative methods answer different questions, merging them into a single study can balance the limitations of each and potentially produce more in-depth findings.

However, mixed methods research is not without its drawbacks. Combining research methods increases the complexity of a study and generally requires a higher level of expertise to collect, analyze and interpret the data. It also requires a greater level of effort, time and often money.

The Importance of Research Design

Data-driven practice plays an essential role in social work. Unlike philanthropists and altruistic volunteers, social workers are obligated to operate from a scientific knowledge base.

To know whether their programs are effective, social workers must conduct research to determine results, aggregate those results into comprehensible data, analyze and interpret their findings, and use evidence to justify next steps.

Employing the proper design ensures that any evidence obtained during research enables social workers to reliably answer their research questions.

Research Methods in Social Work

The various social work research methods have specific benefits and limitations determined by context. Common research methods include surveys, program evaluations, needs assessments, randomized controlled trials, descriptive studies and single-system designs.

Surveys involve a hypothesis and a series of questions in order to test that hypothesis. Social work researchers will send out a survey, receive responses, aggregate the results, analyze the data, and form conclusions based on trends.

Surveys are one of the most common research methods social workers use — and for good reason. They tend to be relatively simple and are usually affordable. However, surveys generally require large participant groups, and self-reports from survey respondents are not always reliable.

Program Evaluations

Social workers ally with all sorts of programs: after-school programs, government initiatives, nonprofit projects and private programs, for example.

Crucially, social workers must evaluate a program’s effectiveness in order to determine whether the program is meeting its goals and what improvements can be made to better serve the program’s target population.

Evidence-based programming helps everyone save money and time, and comparing programs with one another can help social workers make decisions about how to structure new initiatives. Evaluating programs becomes complicated, however, when programs have multiple goal metrics, some of which may be vague or difficult to assess (e.g., “we aim to promote the well-being of our community”).

Needs Assessments

Social workers use needs assessments to identify services and necessities that a population lacks access to.

Common social work populations that researchers may perform needs assessments on include:

People in a specific income group
Everyone in a specific geographic region
A specific ethnic group
People in a specific age group

In the field, a social worker may use a combination of methods (e.g., surveys and descriptive studies) to learn more about a specific population or program. Social workers look for gaps between the actual context and a population’s or individual’s “wants” or desires.

For example, a social worker could conduct a needs assessment with an individual with cancer trying to navigate the complex medical-industrial system. The social worker may ask the client questions about the number of hours they spend scheduling doctor’s appointments, commuting and managing their many medications. After learning more about the specific client needs, the social worker can identify opportunities for improvements in an updated care plan.

In policy and program development, social workers conduct needs assessments to determine where and how to effect change on a much larger scale. Integral to social work at all levels, needs assessments reveal crucial information about a population’s needs to researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders. Needs assessments may fall short, however, in revealing the root causes of those needs (e.g., structural racism).

Randomized Controlled Trials

Randomized controlled trials are studies in which a randomly selected group is subjected to a variable (e.g., a specific stimulus or treatment) and a control group is not. Social workers then measure and compare the results of the randomized group with the control group in order to glean insights about the effectiveness of a particular intervention or treatment.

Randomized controlled trials are easily reproducible and highly measurable. They’re useful when results are easily quantifiable. However, this method is less helpful when results are not easily quantifiable (i.e., when rich data such as narratives and on-the-ground observations are needed).

Descriptive Studies

Descriptive studies immerse the researcher in another context or culture to study specific participant practices or ways of living. Descriptive studies, including descriptive ethnographic studies, may overlap with and include other research methods:

Informant interviews
Census data
Observation

By using descriptive studies, researchers may glean a richer, deeper understanding of a nuanced culture or group on-site. The main limitations of this research method are that it tends to be time-consuming and expensive.

Single-System Designs

Unlike most medical studies, which involve testing a drug or treatment on two groups — an experimental group that receives the drug/treatment and a control group that does not — single-system designs allow researchers to study just one group (e.g., an individual or family).

Single-system designs typically entail studying a single group over a long period of time and may involve assessing the group’s response to multiple variables.

For example, consider a study on how media consumption affects a person’s mood. One way to test a hypothesis that consuming media correlates with low mood would be to observe two groups: a control group (no media) and an experimental group (two hours of media per day). When employing a single-system design, however, researchers would observe a single participant as they watch two hours of media per day for one week and then four hours per day of media the next week.

These designs allow researchers to test multiple variables over a longer period of time. However, similar to descriptive studies, single-system designs can be fairly time-consuming and costly.

Learn More About Social Work Research Methods

Social workers have the opportunity to improve the social environment by advocating for the vulnerable — including children, older adults and people with disabilities — and facilitating and developing resources and programs.

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Theories Used in Social Work Practice & Practice Models

Social work theories are general explanations that are supported by evidence obtained through the scientific method. A theory may explain human behavior, for example, by describing how humans interact or how humans react to certain stimuli.

Social work practice models describe how social workers can implement theories. Practice models provide social workers with a blueprint of how to help others based on the underlying social work theory. While a theory explains why something happens, a practice model shows how to use a theory to create change.

Social Work Theories

There are many social work theories that guide social work practice. Here are some of the major theories that are generally accepted in the field of social work:

Systems theory describes human behavior in terms of complex systems. It is premised on the idea that an effective system is based on individual needs, rewards, expectations, and attributes of the people living in the system. According to this theory, families, couples, and organization members are directly involved in resolving a problem even if it is an individual issue.

Social learning theory is based on Albert Bandura’s idea that learning occurs through observation and imitation. New behavior will continue if it is reinforced. According to this theory, rather than simply hearing a new concept and applying it, the learning process is made more efficient if the new behavior is modeled as well.

Psychosocial development theory is an eight-stage theory of identity and psychosocial development articulated by Erik Erikson. Erikson believed everyone must pass through eight stages of development over the life cycle: hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom. Each stage is divided into age ranges from infancy to older adults.

Psychodynamic theory was developed by Freud, and it explains personality in terms of conscious and unconscious forces. This social work theory describes the personality as consisting of the id (responsible for following basic instincts), the superego (attempts to follow rules and behave morally), and the ego (mediates between the id and the ego).

Transpersonal theory proposes additional stages beyond the adult ego. In healthy individuals, these stages contribute to creativity, wisdom, and altruism. In people lacking healthy ego development, experiences can lead to psychosis.

Rational choice theory is based on the idea that all action is fundamentally rational in character, and people calculate the risks and benefits of any action before making decisions.

Social Work Practice Models

There are many different practice models that influence the way social workers choose to help people meet their goals. Here are some of the major social work practice models used in various roles, such as case managers and therapists:

Problem solving assists people with the problem solving process. Rather than tell clients what to do, social workers teach clients how to apply a problem solving method so they can develop their own solutions.

Task-centered practice is a short-term treatment where clients establish specific, measurable goals. Social workers and clients collaborate together and create specific strategies and steps to begin reaching those goals.

Narrative therapy externalizes a person’s problem by examining the story of the person’s life. In the story, the client is not defined by the problem, and the problem exists as a separate entity. Instead of focusing on a client’s depression, in this social work practice model, a client would be encouraged to fight against the depression by looking at the skills and abilities that may have previously been taken for granted.

Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on the relationship between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Social workers assist clients in identifying patterns of irrational and self-destructive thoughts and behaviors that influence emotions.

Crisis intervention model is used when someone is dealing with an acute crisis. The model includes seven stages: assess safety and lethality, rapport building, problem identification, address feelings, generate alternatives, develop an action plan, and follow up. This social work practice model is commonly used with clients who are expressing suicidal ideation.

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Online MSW Programs / Social Work / 6 Important Theories in Social Work

Six important theories in social work

Social work theories attempt to describe, explain and predict social events based on scientific evidence, studies and research. Social work perspectives draw from psychology, philosophy, economics, education and other fields to attempt to explain what drives and motivates people at various stages of life.

Some social work students studying for a bachelor’s degree in social work or master of social work may wonder, “Why is theory important in social work?” Studying theory ensures that aspiring professionals are both competent and confident when the time comes to apply social work theories to practice.

Why is theory important in social work?

Social work theories help social workers analyze cases, understand clients, create interventions, predict intervention results, and evaluate outcomes. While the theories are constantly evolving as new evidence is produced, referencing social work theories that have been used over time enables social workers to explore causes of behavior and identify potential solutions.

A crucial objective of learning social work theories is to train and encourage social workers to set aside personal assumptions and beliefs when engaging in social work practice. Social workers should use evidence-based theories to investigate issues and drive their decision making.

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Applying social work theory to practice

Social work theory provides a starting point for social workers to address client problems through a research-based lens.

The theories help social workers better understand complex human behaviors and social environments, which influence their clients lives and the challenges they face. A good grasp of theory that is backed by research-based scientific evidence helps guide social workers by providing them with a sense of direction and purpose.

One challenge when applying social work theories to practice is choosing the right theory for the situation. It can be difficult to assign a single theory to complex client issues. Often, it’s more practical to draw upon the knowledge of multiple theories and use that understanding to design multifaceted interventions.

List of important social work theories

The following list of social work theories includes some of the most widely referenced theories used in social work.

1. Social learning theory

Social learning theory , which is also known as social cognitive theory , was developed by psychologist Albert Bandura. This theory posits that learning occurs by observing others and modeling their behavior.

In order for social learning to occur, a person must want to emulate the person they’re watching. The individual pays close attention to the action and retains the action in memory. Then, the individual must experience a situation where the behavior can be repeated and must be motivated to repeat the behavior.

Social workers can use this theory to better understand how role models affect the behaviors and emotions of their clients. Social learning theory can also help social workers form intervention strategies that use positive modeling and reinforcement to encourage their clients to engage in new positive behaviors.

2. Systems theory

Systems theory proposes that people are products of complex systems, rather than individuals who act in isolation. According to this theory, behavior is influenced by a variety of factors that work together as a system. These factors include family, friends, social settings, religious structure, economic class, and home environment.

Systems theory can be used to treat issues like eating disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, school trauma, and risky behavior. In ecological systems theory, individuals are observed in multiple environments so that behavior is fully understood. Family systems theory examines the family as a social system influencing behavior and thoughts.

Social workers using systems theory will work to understand how their clients are influenced by the systems they’re a part of. Social workers then identify where systemic breakdowns are affecting behavior.

3. Psychosocial development theory

Psychosocial development theory was introduced by German psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, who believed personality develops in a series of stages. Erikson created an eight-stage theory of psychosocial development . According to the theory, the eight stages of development that people pass through in life are:

Trust versus mistrust
Autonomy versus shame and doubt
Initiative versus guilt
Industry versus inferiority
Identity versus confusion
Intimacy versus isolation
Generativity versus stagnation
Integrity versus despair

Psychosocial development theory explains that humans pass through these stages as they age. By identifying which stage of development their clients are experiencing, social workers can better understand the challenges their clients face.

4. Psychodynamic theory

Psychodynamic theory was introduced by the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. This theory is founded on the idea that humans are biologically driven to seek gratification. The theory states that people do this based on processes that have developed outside of conscious awareness, with origins in childhood experiences. This drive influences everyday behavior, leading to actions like aggression, sex and self-preservation.

In social work, psychodynamic theory can help to explain the internal processes individuals use to guide their behavior , some of which may be unconsciously motivated. Social workers may also examine how early childhood experiences have played a role in influencing their clients’ current behavior.

5. Social exchange theory

Social exchange theory suggests that relationships are based on cost-benefit analysis. Each person seeks to maximize their benefits and is expected to reciprocate for the benefits they’ve received. When risks outweigh potential rewards, relationships may be abandoned. When one person in a relationship has greater personal resources than another, that person is predicted to have greater power as well.

Social workers can use social exchange theory to understand their clients’ relationships, including why they continue to maintain certain relationships or abandon them.

Social exchange theory can also be applied to the techniques social workers use to connect with their clients. This theory can influence how social workers position the social worker-client relationship as one that benefits their clients.

6. Rational choice theory

Rational choice theory helps explain why people make the choices they do, by weighing risks, costs and benefits. This theory suggests that all choices are rational because people calculate the costs and benefits before making a decision. Even when a choice seems irrational, there is reasoning behind it.

This theory can help social workers understand the decision-making processes and motivations of their clients.

Six practice models in social work

Social work practice models enable social workers to implement theories in their day-to-day work. Just like a social worker may use various theories to guide their interventions, social workers may also use various practice models depending on the problems their clients encounter.

1. Cognitive behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on how thoughts and feelings influence behaviors, which can sometimes lead to psychological problems. Social workers using cognitive behavioral therapy methods help clients identify self-destructive thoughts that influence negative emotions and behaviors.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is often used for individuals who are experiencing mental health issues, mental illness or depression resulting from crisis or trauma. Social workers using cognitive behavioral therapy help their clients eliminate negative thoughts to prevent destructive behaviors and adverse outcomes.

2. Crisis intervention model

The crisis intervention model is used for clients who are experiencing crisis and trauma, such as victims of domestic violence, and for clients who require intervention to prevent physical harm or suicide. Albert R. Roberts, PhD, and Allen J. Ottens, PhD, developed a seven-stage crisis intervention model :

Take a psychosocial and lethality assessment.
Rapidly establish rapport.
Identify the major crisis cause(s).
Enable the client to express their feelings and emotions.
Generate and explore safe alternatives for coping.
Create an action plan.
Follow up after the intervention.

This social work model can be used for clients who are experiencing thoughts of suicide or self-harm or who have undergone an acute crisis, like rape or violence.

3. Narrative therapy

Narrative therapy is the process of helping the individual recognize that they have the power to change their life story, also known as the narrative. Narrative therapy helps individuals realize that they are separate from their problems and can fix them when they view the narrative from an outside perspective.

Using narrative therapy, a social worker can help an individual create a new narrative with different positive actions. The social worker enables the individual to understand how the broader context is contributing to their narrative, so that they can be aware of pitfalls to avoid and can utilize various strategies to tackle their problems.

4. Problem-solving model

The problem-solving model was created by Helen Harris Perlman , a social worker and author of “Social Casework: A Problem-solving Process.” Using the problem-solving model, a social worker helps an individual identify a problem, create an action plan to solve it, and implement the solution. Together, the social worker and individual discuss the effectiveness of the problem-solving strategy and adjust it as necessary. The problem-solving model enables the social worker and individual to focus on one concrete problem at a time.

5. Solution-focused therapy

Solution-focused therapy involves the social worker and client identifying a problem and creating a solution based on the individual’s strengths. It’s a short-term practice model that focuses on helping clients cope with challenges using specific behaviors. Instead of focusing on changing who a client is, solution-focused therapy attempts to change a client’s actions in certain situations to achieve more favorable outcomes.

Collaborating to create solutions allows the client to play an active role in implementing necessary actions and achieving positive change.

6. Task-centered practice

Using task-centered practice, a social worker breaks down a problem into manageable tasks. The individual has deadlines to complete the tasks and agrees to meet them. Task-centered practice is a goal-setting form of social work that helps individuals make consistent steps toward improving their lives.

Instead of focusing on the past, this type of practice encourages clients to live in the present and think about how completing certain tasks will positively impact their future.

Resources to explore social work theories

Social work theories have been practiced over decades and continually evolve when new research is completed. Learn more about social work theories by exploring the resources below.

Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work : This journal features research on evidence-based practice in social work and evaluates social work theory, techniques, and strategies.
Journal of Social Work Practice : This journal focuses on psychodynamic and systemic social work perspectives. It features research on theory and practice and includes articles offering critical analysis of systemic and psychodynamic theory.
Journal of Social Work : This journal includes social work research and short “think pieces” on social work theoretical understanding, policy, and practice.
Social Work: This journal is the official journal of the National Association of Social Workers and features articles on social work and social welfare, including new techniques and research.
Clinical Social Work Journal: This journal features peer-reviewed articles on clinical social work practice with individuals, groups, families, and couples. It also has articles on theory developments, practice and evidence-based clinical research.

Introductory books

“A Brief Introduction to Social Work Theory” : This textbook by David Howe explains how social work practice is influenced by various social work theories and shows how social work theories have evolved over time.
“An Introduction to Applying Social Work Theories and Methods”: This book by Barbra Teater explains the most prominent social work theories and how those approaches can be used in practice.
“Social Work Theory and Practice”: This book by Lesley Deacon and Stephen J. Macdonald explains how social work theory informs practice for various individuals and contexts.
“Modern Social Work Theory”: This book by Malcolm Payne introduces the major social work practice theories and explains how to apply theory to practice.
“An Introduction to Using Theory in Social Work Practice”: This book by James A. Forte covers 14 social work theories and explains how to use them from engagement through evaluation.

Note: the links in this section on Social Work Theory all go to Google Books and are solely provided for your information. edX does not receive any form of compensation for these links.

Other online resources

NASW Clinical Social Work : This section of the National Association of Social Workers website covers clinical social work practice. It features content, publications, and related resources for clinical social workers, like the “ NASW Standards for Clinical Social Work in Social Work Practice (PDF, 135 KB) .”
Encyclopedia of Social Work: The Encyclopedia of Social Work by the National Association of Social Workers Press and Oxford University Press features tools for applying social work theory to practice. These resources include scholarly articles and bibliographies.
Social Work Today : This publication features articles on current social work trends in categories like behavioral health, addictions, children and family, aging and professional practice.

Science-based social work theory helps social workers and their clients succeed

Social work theory helps professionals in the field identify and implement effective interventions for clients. An understanding of the most prominent social work theories gives social workers the tools they need to provide evidence-based treatment and help their clients overcome their problems. As social work theories continue to evolve and emerge, social workers can apply their multifaceted knowledge to unique situations and clients.

Are you considering a career in social work? Read more about the field of social work and the steps to becoming a social worker , which can vary by location.

Last updated: November 2023

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11 Important Social Work Theories and Methods

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Social work plays an important role in the mental and emotional health of individuals and communities. Social workers serve clients who are in crisis, who may have addiction disorders, who are in unhealthy relationships, or who are housing or food insecure. While social work is a thoroughly modern profession, its roots date to the 19th century, with the passage of laws aimed at improving the condition of poor and vulnerable communities.

Social work theories and methods are crucial to the modern practice of social work. Accredited Master of Social Work (MSW) programs teach these important theories to prepare students for a career as a licensed social worker.

The following 11 social work theories and methods are some of the most important principles in the field today:

1. Psychosocial Theory

Psychosocial theory, which Erik Erikson developed in the 1950s, is the main principle of social work. Also referred to as person-in-environment (PIE) theory, psychosocial theory posits that a person develops a personality in stages, based on environment and relationships with family and community.

As children, teens and adults, humans go through successive stages, acquiring autonomy, initiative, identity, creativity and a capacity for intimacy. However, at every stage, the chance exists that people will instead develop a capacity for mistrust, shame, guilt, isolation and despair. For example, in the identity vs. role confusion stage, teens undergo conflict as they work out their identity in relation to the expectations of their parents, teachers and community.

2. Attachment Theory

Attachment theory is one of the best-known theories that provide a framework for social workers to understand human behavior. Attachment theory holds that babies have innate behaviors whose purpose is to ensure that caregivers meet their needs. These behaviors include crying, making eye contact, clinging and smiling. The development of healthy attachments lets a child be secure enough to meet the world with confidence. However, when the attachment is inconsistent or broken, children develop maladaptive behaviors that impact development.

3. Systems Theory

Systems theory provides a framework for understanding why a person behaves in a certain way. Social workers can investigate all the factors that impact or have been impacted by a client, and by understanding all these systems, they can put together a picture of what drives a client’s behavior and choices.

For example, systems theory provides an understanding of adolescent risk-taking behavior. Researchers who studied Swiss teenagers reported in 2021 that teenage boys were more likely to engage in risky behavior because their drive for sensation seeking outpaced their drive for self-regulation.

4. Behavioral Theory

Behavioral theory, or behaviorism, holds that people learn behaviors through conditioning. A person performs an action that’s reinforced through a natural consequence or a negative consequence. Social workers often use behavioral therapy techniques to treat patients. For example, therapists may use conditioning techniques to help clients modify undesirable behaviors. Behavioral theory is often used in conjunction with cognitive components to form cognitive behavioral therapy treatments.

5. Cognitive Theory

Cognitive theory holds that emotional responses come from thought processes. Social workers can use cognitive theory to help patients identify the thoughts that trigger a certain behavior. They can help patients reframe these thought processes to overcome negative behaviors. Cognitive theory and the associated social cognitive theory can be used to help patients overcome phobias, such as social phobia.

6. Cognitive Behavioral Theory

Social workers use cognitive behavioral methods to help clients reframe limiting or negative behaviors. They guide individuals through steps to understand their behavior, including the thought processes leading up to it. Social workers may use exposure therapy, meditation, journaling or other tools to help clients overcome anxiety and fears. Clients with depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) respond well to cognitive behavioral methods.

7. Motivational Theory

What pushes a person to act? Many types of motivational theories seek to answer that question. One of the most famous is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: This theory states that only when the most pressing needs (food, shelter, safety) have been met can people seek higher goals (love, learning, art). One example of motivational theory in practice is motivational interviewing. In this technique, a social worker guides and empowers clients to manage change. The technique is collaborative and respectful and can be applied in a variety of settings.

8. Empowerment Theory

Empowerment theory is a central tenet of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics, as part of the profession’s commitment to social justice. Empowerment theory holds that social workers must support clients and their communities in building connections, fighting injustice and creating grassroots organizations. Empowerment theory, like conflict theory, aims to change society rather than provide a treatment model for individuals.

9. Task-Centered Model

The combination of social work theories and methods provides a powerful toolkit for social workers. Based on the theories presented here, social workers have numerous methods for working with patients.

For example, social workers may use a task-centered model to help their clients develop problem-solving skills. The goal of a task-centered practice is to help individuals achieve autonomy. The social worker guides clients through the five stages of problem-solving: (1) defining the problem, (2) brainstorming ideas and running through scenarios, (3) choosing a solution, (4) applying the solution, and (5) analyzing how well the solution worked.

The task-centered model can seem simplistic, but as social workers and their clients often discover, learning to be effective problem-solvers is harder than it looks.

10. Crisis Intervention

Social workers have been at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic, just as they are during other natural disasters. Social workers employ crisis intervention techniques and methodologies to treat and stabilize the mental and emotional health of people in crisis. They work in the community, in hospitals and in other healthcare facilities. Social workers treat clients suffering from illness and grief. They also mobilize community responses and help already marginalized individuals and communities receive resources and treatment.

11. Narrative Method

Narrative methods recognize that we all tell stories about ourselves and others. Social workers use narrative therapy to help clients define their stories and identities. For example, this narrative technique can help change an individual’s self-perception as a criminal to someone worthy of redemption. The narrative method centers clients as the experts in their own life and avoids blame. It focuses on helping clients change behaviors that’ve injured them in the past.

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Social work is an evidence-based profession with a long history of research and publication in human psychology. Social workers have a vast toolkit with which to treat individuals and help heal communities. If you’re drawn to a career that uses proven theories to help those in need, learn more about the online MSW program at the University of Nevada, Reno. With a curriculum grounded in these social work theories and methods, it offers graduates an excellent foundation for a future in social work.

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The Pursuit of Quality for Social Work Practice: Three Generations and Counting

Enola proctor.

Shanti K. Khinduka Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Mental Health Services Research at Washington University in St. Louis

Social work addresses some of the most complex and intractable human and social problems: poverty, mental illness, addiction, homelessness, and child abuse. Our field may be distinct among professions for its efforts to ameliorate the toughest societal problems, experienced by society’s most vulnerable, while working from under-resourced institutions and settings. Members of our profession are underpaid, and most of our agencies lack the data infrastructure required for rigorous assessment and evaluation.

Moreover, social work confronts these challenges as it is ethically bound to deliver high-quality services. Policy and regulatory requirements increasingly demand that social work deliver and document the effectiveness of highest quality interventions and restrict reimbursement to those services that are documented as evidence based. Social work’s future, its very survival, depends on our ability to deliver services with a solid base of evidence and to document their effectiveness. In the words of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW; n.d.) , social work seeks to “champion social progress powered by science.” The research community needs to support practice through innovative and rigorous science that advances the evidence for interventions to address social work’s grand challenges.

My work seeks to improve the quality of social work practice by pursuing answers to three questions:

What interventions and services are most effective and thus should be delivered in social work practice?
How do we measure the impact of those interventions and services? (That is, what outcomes do our interventions achieve?)
How do we implement the highest quality interventions?

This paper describes this work, demonstrates the substantive and methodological progression across the three questions, assesses what we have learned, and forecasts a research agenda for what we still need to learn. Given Aaron Rosen’s role as my PhD mentor and our many years of collaboration, the paper also addresses the role of research mentoring in advancing our profession’s knowledge base.

What Interventions and Services Are Most Effective?

Answering the question “What services are effective?” requires rigorous testing of clearly specified interventions. The first paper I coauthored with Aaron Rosen—“Specifying the Treatment Process: The Basis for Effectiveness Research” ( Rosen & Proctor, 1978 )—provided a framework for evaluating intervention effectiveness. At that time, process and outcomes were jumbled and intertwined concepts. Social work interventions were rarely specified beyond theoretical orientation or level of focus: casework (or direct practice); group work; and macro practice, which included community, agency-level, and policy-focused practice. Moreover, interventions were not named, nor were their components clearly identified. We recognized that gross descriptions of interventions obstruct professional training, preclude fidelity assessment, and prevent accurate tests of effectiveness. Thus, in a series of papers, Rosen and I advocated that social work interventions be specified, clearly labeled, and operationally defined, measured, and tested.

Specifying Interventions

Such specification of interventions is essential to two professional responsibilities: professional education and demonstrating the effectiveness of the field’s interventions. Without specification, interventions cannot be taught. Social work education is all about equipping students with skills to deliver interventions, programs, services, administrative practices, and policies. Teaching interventions requires an ability to name, define, see them in action, measure their presence (or absence), assess the fidelity with which they are delivered, and give feedback to students on how to increase or refine the associated skills.

To advance testing the effectiveness of social work interventions, we drew distinctions between interventions and outcomes and proposed these two constructs as the foci for effectiveness research. We defined interventions as practitioner behaviors that can be volitionally manipulated by practitioners (used or not, varied in intensity and timing), that are defined in detail, can be reliably measured, and can be linked to specific identified outcomes ( Rosen & Proctor, 1978 ; Rosen & Proctor, 1981 ). This definition foreshadowed the development of treatment manuals, lists of specific evidence-based practices, and calls for monitoring intervention fidelity. Recognizing the variety of intervention types, and to advance their more precise definition and measurement, we proposed that interventions be distinguished in terms of their complexity. Interventive responses comprise discrete or single responses, such as affirmation, expression of empathy, or positive reinforcement. Interventive strategies comprise several different actions that are, together, linked to a designated outcome, such as motivational interviewing. Most complex are interventive programs , which are a variety of intervention actions organized and integrated as a total treatment package; collaborative care for depression or community assertive treatment are examples. To strengthen the professional knowledge base, we also called for social work effectiveness research to begin testing the optimal dose and sequencing of intervention components in relation to attainment of desired outcomes.

Advancing Intervention Effectiveness Research

Our “specifying paper” also was motivated by the paucity of literature at that time on actual social work interventions. Our literature review of 13 major social work journals over 5 years of published research revealed that only 15% of published social work research addressed interventions. About a third of studies described social problems, and about half explored factors associated with the problem ( Rosen, Proctor, & Staudt, 2003 ). Most troubling was our finding that only 3% of articles described the intervention or its components in sufficient detail for replication in either research or practice. Later, Fraser (2004) found intervention research to comprise only about one fourth of empirical studies in social work. Fortunately, our situation has improved. Intervention research is more frequent in social work publications, thanks largely to the publication policies of the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research and Research on Social Work Practice .

Research Priorities

Social work faces important and formidable challenges as it advances research on intervention effectiveness. The practitioner who searches the literature or various intervention lists can find more than 500 practices that are named or that are shown to have evidence from rigorous trials that passes a bar to qualify as evidence-based practices. However, our profession still lacks any organized compendium or taxonomy of interventions that are employed in or found to be effective for social work practice. Existing lists of evidence-based practices, although necessary, are insufficient for social work for several reasons. First, as a 2015 National Academies Institute of Medicine (IOM) report—“Psychosocial Interventions for Mental and Substance Use Disorders: A Framework for Establishing Evidence-Based Standards” ( IOM, 2015 )—concluded, too few evidence-based practices have been found to be appropriate for low-resource settings or acceptable to minority groups. Second, existing interventions do not adequately reflect the breadth of social work practice. We have too few evidence-based interventions that can inform effective community organization, case management, referral practice, resource development, administrative practice, or policy. Noting that there is far less literature on evidence-based practices relevant to organizational, community, and policy practice, a social work task force responding to the 2015 IOM report recommended that this gap be a target of our educational and research efforts ( National Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice in Social Work, 2016 ). And finally, our field—along with other professions that deliver psychosocial interventions—lacks the kinds of procedure codes that can identify the specific interventions we deliver. Documenting social work activities in agency records is increasingly essential for quality assurance and third-party reimbursement.

Future Directions: Research to Advance Evidence on Interventions

Social work has critically important research needs. Our field needs to advance the evidence base on what interventions work for social work populations, practices, and settings. Responding to the 2015 IOM report, the National Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice in Social Work (2016) identified as a social work priority the development and testing of evidence-based practices relevant to organizational, community, and policy practice. As we advance our intervention effectiveness research, we must respond to the challenge of determining the key mechanisms of change ( National Institute of Mental Health, 2016 ) and identify key modifiable components of packaged interventions ( Rosen & Proctor, 1978 ). We need to explore the optimal dosage, ordering, or adapted bundling of intervention elements and advance robust, feasible ways to measure and increase fidelity ( Jaccard, 2016 ). We also need to conduct research on which interventions are most appropriate, acceptable, and effective with various client groups ( Zayas, 2003 ; Videka, 2003 ).

Documenting the Impact of Interventions: Specifying and Measuring Outcomes

Outcomes are key to documenting the impact of social work interventions. My 1978 “specifying” paper with Rosen emphasized that the effectiveness of social work practice could not be adequately evaluated without clear specification and measurement of various types of outcomes. In that paper, we argued that the profession cannot rely only on an assertion of effectiveness. The field must also calibrate, calculate, and communicate its impact.

The nursing profession’s highly successful campaign, based on outcomes research, positioned that field to claim that “nurses save lives.” Nurse staffing ratios were associated with in-hospital and 30-day mortality, independent of patient characteristics, hospital characteristics, or medical treatment ( Person et al., 2004 ). In contrast, social work has often described—sometimes advertised—itself as the low-cost profession. The claim of “cheapest service” may have some strategic advantage in turf competition with other professions. But social work can do better. Our research base can and should demonstrate the value of our work by naming and quantifying the outcomes—the added value of social work interventions.

As a start to this work—a beginning step in compiling evidence about the impact of social work interventions—our team set out to identify the outcomes associated with social work practice. We felt that identifying and naming outcomes is essential for conveying what social work is about. Moreover, outcomes should serve as the focus for evaluating the effectiveness of social work interventions.

We produced two taxonomies of outcomes reflected in published evaluations of social work interventions ( Proctor, Rosen, & Rhee, 2002 ; Rosen, Proctor, & Staudt, 2003 ). They included such outcomes as change in clients’ social functioning, resource procurement, problem or symptom reduction, and safety. They exemplify the importance of naming and measuring what our profession can contribute to society. Although social work’s growing body of effectiveness research typically reports outcomes of the interventions being tested, the literature has not, in the intervening 20 years, addressed the collective set of outcomes for our field.

Fortunately, the Grand Challenges for Social Work (AASWSW, n.d.) now provide a framework for communicating social work’s goals. They reflect social work’s added value: improving individual and family well-being, strengthening social fabric, and helping to create a more just society. The Grand Challenges for Social Work include ensuring healthy development for all youth, closing the health gap, stopping family violence, advancing long and productive lives, eradicating social isolation, ending homelessness, creating social responses to a changing environment, harnessing technology for social good, promoting smart decarceration, reducing extreme economic inequality, building financial capability for all, and achieving equal opportunity and justice ( AASWSW, n.d. ).

These important goals appropriately reflect much of what we are all about in social work, and our entire field has been galvanized—energized by the power of these grand challenges. However, the grand challenges require setting specific benchmarks—targets that reflect how far our professional actions can expect to take us, or in some areas, how far we have come in meeting the challenge.

For the past decade, care delivery systems and payment reforms have required measures for tracking performance. Quality measures have become critical tools for all service providers and organizations ( IOM, 2015 ). The IOM defines quality of care as “the degree to which … services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired … outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge” ( Lohr, 1990 , p. 21). Quality measures are important at multiple levels of service delivery: at the client level, at the practitioner level, at the organization level, and at the policy level. The National Quality Forum has established five criteria for quality measures: They should address (a) the most important, (b) the most scientifically valid, (c) the most feasible or least burdensome, (d) the most usable, and (e) the most harmonious set of measures ( IOM, 2015 .) Quality measures have been advanced by accrediting groups (e.g., the Joint Commission of the National Committee for Quality Assurance), professional societies, and federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. However, quality measures are lacking for key areas of social work practice, including mental health and substance-use treatment. And of the 55 nationally endorsed measures related to mental health and substance use, only two address a psychosocial intervention. Measures used for accreditation and certification purposes often reflect structural capabilities of organizations and their resource use, not the infrastructure required to deliver high-quality services ( IOM, 2015 ). I am not aware of any quality measure developed by our own professional societies or agreed upon across our field.

Future Directions: Research on Quality Monitoring and Measure Development

Although social work as a field lacks a strong tradition of measuring and assessing quality ( Megivern et al., 2007 ; McMillen et al., 2005 ; Proctor, Powell, & McMillen, 2012 ), social work’s role in the quality workforce is becoming better understood ( McMillen & Raffol, 2016 ). The small number of established and endorsed quality measures reflects both limitations in the evidence for effective interventions and challenges in obtaining the detailed information necessary to support quality measurement ( IOM, 2015 ). According to the National Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice in Social Work (2016) , developing quality measures to capture use of evidence-based interventions is essential for the survival of social work practice in many settings. The task force recommends that social work organizations develop relevant and viable quality measures and that social workers actively influence the implementation of quality measures in their practice settings.

How to Implement Evidence-Based Care

A third and more recent focus of my work addresses this question: How do we implement evidence-based care in agencies and communities? Despite our progress in developing proven interventions, most clients—whether served by social workers or other providers—do not receive evidence-based care. A growing number of studies are assessing the extent to which clients—in specific settings or communities—receive evidence-based interventions. Kohl, Schurer, and Bellamy (2009) examined quality in a core area of social work: training for parents at risk for child maltreatment. The team examined the parent services and their level of empirical support in community agencies, staffed largely by master’s-level social workers. Of 35 identified treatment programs offered to families, only 11% were “well-established empirically supported interventions,” with another 20% containing some hallmarks of empirically supported interventions ( Kohl et al., 2009 ). This study reveals a sizable implementation gap, with most of the programs delivered lacking scientific validation.

Similar quality gaps are apparent in other settings where social workers deliver services. Studies show that only 19.3% of school mental health professionals and 36.8% of community mental health professionals working in Virginia’s schools and community mental health centers report using any evidence-based substance-abuse prevention programs ( Evans, Koch, Brady, Meszaros, & Sadler, 2013 ). In mental health, where social workers have long delivered the bulk of services, only 40% to 50% of people with mental disorders receive any treatment ( Kessler, Chiu, Demler, Merikangas, & Walters, 2005 ; Merikangas et al., 2011 ), and of those receiving treatment, a fraction receive what could be considered “quality” treatment ( Wang, Demler, & Kessler, 2002 ; Wang et al., 2005 ). These and other studies indicate that, despite progress in developing proven interventions, most clients do not receive evidence-based care. In light of the growth of evidence-based practice, this fact is troubling evidence that testing interventions and publishing the findings is not sufficient to improve quality.

So, how do we get these interventions in place? What is needed to enable social workers to deliver, and clients to receive, high-quality care? In addition to developing and testing evidence-based interventions, what else is needed to improve the quality of social work practice? My work has focused on advancing quality of services through two paths.

Making Effective Interventions Accessible to Providers: Intervention Reviews and Taxonomies

First, we have advocated that research evidence be synthesized and made available to front-line practitioners. In a research-active field where new knowledge is constantly produced, practitioners should not be expected to rely on journal publications alone for information about effective approaches to achieve desired outcomes. Mastering a rapidly expanding professional evidence base has been characterized as a nearly unachievable challenge for practitioners ( Greenfield, 2017 ). Reviews should critique and clarify the intervention’s effectiveness as tested in specific settings, populations, and contexts, answering the question, “What works where, and with whom?” Even more valuable are studies of comparative effectiveness—those that answer, “Which intervention approach works better, where, and when?”

Taxonomies of clearly and consistently labeled interventions will enhance their accessibility and the usefulness of research reports and systematic reviews. A pre-requisite is the consistent naming of interventions. A persistent challenge is the wide variation in names or labels for interventive procedures and programs. Our professional activities are the basis for our societal sanction, and they must be capable of being accurately labeled and documented if we are to describe what our profession “does” to advance social welfare. Increasingly, and in short order, that documentation will be in electronic records that are scrutinized by third parties for purposes of reimbursement and assessment of value toward outcome attainment.

How should intervention research and reviews be organized? Currently, several websites provide lists of evidence-based practices, some with links, citations, or information about dissemination and implementation organizations that provide training and facilitation to adopters. Practitioners and administrators find such lists helpful but often note the challenge in determining which are most appropriate for their needs. In the words of one agency leader, “The drug companies are great at presenting [intervention information] in a very easy form to use. We don’t have people coming and saying, ‘Ah, let me tell you about the best evidence-based practice for cognitive behavioral therapy for depression,’” ( Proctor et al., 2007 , p. 483). We have called for the field to devise decision aids for practitioners to enhance access to the best available empirical knowledge about interventions ( Proctor et al., 2002 ; Proctor & Rosen, 2008 ; Rosen et al., 2003 ). We proposed that intervention taxonomies be organized around outcomes pursued in social work practice, and we developed such a taxonomy based on eight domains of outcomes—those most frequently tested in social work journals. Given the field’s progress in identifying its grand challenges, its associated outcomes could well serve as the organizing focus, with research-tested interventions listed for each challenge. Compiling the interventions, programs, and services that are shown—through research—to help achieve one of the challenges would surely advance our field.

We further urged profession-wide efforts to develop social work practice guidelines from intervention taxonomies ( Rosen et al., 2003 ). Practice guidelines are systematically compiled, critiqued, and organized statements about the effectiveness of interventions that are organized in a way to help practitioners select and use the most effective and appropriate approaches for addressing client problems and pursuing desired outcomes.

At that time, we proposed that our published taxonomy of social work interventions could provide a beginning architecture for social work guidelines ( Rosen et al., 2003 ). In 2000, we organized a conference for thought leaders in social work practice. This talented group wrestled with and formulated recommendations for tackling the professional, research, and training requisites to developing social work practice guidelines to enable researchers to access and apply the best available knowledge about interventions ( Rosen et al., 2003 ). Fifteen years later, however, the need remains for social work to synthesize its intervention research. Psychology and psychiatry, along with most fields of medical practice, have developed practice guidelines. Although their acceptance and adherence is fraught with challenges, guidelines make evidence more accessible and enable quality monitoring. Yet, guidelines still do not exist for social work.

The 2015 IOM report, “Psychosocial Interventions for Mental and Substance Use Disorders: A Framework for Establishing Evidence-Based Standards,” includes a conclusion that information on the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions is not routinely available to service consumers, providers, and payers, nor is it synthesized. That 2015 IOM report called for systematic reviews to inform clinical guidelines for psychosocial interventions. This report defined psychosocial interventions broadly, encompassing “interpersonal or informational activities, techniques, or strategies that target biological, behavioral, cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, social, or environmental factors with the aim of reducing symptoms and improving functioning or well-being” ( IOM, 2015 , p. 5). These interventions are social work’s domain; they are delivered in the very settings where social workers dominate (behavioral health, schools, criminal justice, child welfare, and immigrant services); and they encompass populations across the entire lifespan within all sociodemographic groups and vulnerable populations. Accordingly, the National Task Force on Evidence Based Practice in Social Work (2016) has recommended the conduct of more systematic reviews of the evidence supporting social work interventions.

If systematic reviews are to lead to guidelines for evidence-based psychosocial interventions, social work needs to be at the table, and social work research must provide the foundation. Whether social work develops its own guidelines or helps lead the development of profession-independent guidelines as recommended by the IOM committee, guidelines need to be detailed enough to guide practice. That is, they need to be accompanied by treatment manuals and informed by research that details the effect of moderator variables and contextual factors reflecting diverse clientele, social determinants of health, and setting resource challenges. The IOM report “Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust” sets criteria for guideline development processes ( IOM, 2011 ). Moreover, social work systematic reviews of research and any associated evidence-based guidelines need to be organized around meaningful taxonomies.

Advancing the Science of Implementation

As a second path to ensuring the delivery of high-quality care, my research has focused on advancing the science of implementation. Implementation research seeks to inform how to deliver evidence-based interventions, programs, and policies into real-world settings so their benefits can be realized and sustained. The ultimate aim of implementation research is building a base of evidence about the most effective processes and strategies for improving service delivery. Implementation research builds upon effectiveness research then seeks to discover how to use specific implementation strategies and move those interventions into specific settings, extending their availability, reach, and benefits to clients and communities. Accordingly, implementation strategies must address the challenges of the service system (e.g., specialty mental health, schools, criminal justice system, health settings) and practice settings (e.g., community agency, national employee assistance programs, office-based practice), and the human capital challenge of staff training and support.

In an approach that echoes themes in an early paper, “Specifying the Treatment Process—The Basis for Effectiveness Research” ( Rosen & Proctor, 1978 ), my work once again tackled the challenge of specifying a heretofore vague process—this time, not the intervention process, but the implementation process. As a first step, our team developed a taxonomy of implementation outcomes ( Proctor et al., 2011 ), which enable a direct test of whether or not a given intervention is adopted and delivered. Although it is overlooked in other types of research, implementation science focuses on this distinct type of outcome. Explicit examination of implementation outcomes is key to an important research distinction. Often, evaluations yield disappointing results about an intervention, showing that the expected and desired outcomes are not attained. This might mean that the intervention was not effective. However, just as likely, it could mean that the intervention was not actually delivered, or it was not delivered with fidelity. Implementation outcomes help identify the roadblocks on the way to intervention adoption and delivery.

Our 2011 taxonomy of implementation outcomes ( Proctor et al., 2011 ), became the framework for two national repositories of measures for implementation research: the Seattle Implementation Research Collaborative ( Lewis et al., 2015 ) and the National Institutes of Health GEM measures database ( Rabin et al., 2012 ). These repositories of implementation outcomes seek to harmonize and increase the rigor of measurement in implementation science.

We also have developed taxonomies of implementation strategies ( Powell et al., 2012 ; Powell et al., 2015 ; Waltz et al., 2014 , 2015) . Implementation strategies are interventions for system change—how organizations, communities, and providers can learn to deliver new and more effective practices ( Powell et al., 2012 ).

A conversation with a key practice leader stimulated my interest in implementation strategies. Shortly after our school endorsed an MSW curriculum emphasizing evidence-based practices, a pioneering CEO of a major social service agency in St. Louis met with me and asked,

Enola Proctor, I get the importance of delivering evidence based practices. My organization delivers over 20 programs and interventions, and I believe only a handful of them are really evidence based. I want to decrease our provision of ineffective care, and increase our delivery of evidence-based practices. But how? What are the evidence-based ways I, as an agency director, can transform my agency so that we can deliver evidence-based practices?

That agency director was asking a question of how . He was asking for evidence-based implementation strategies. Moving effective programs and practices into routine care settings requires the skillful use of implementation strategies, defined as systematic “methods or techniques used to enhance the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of a clinical program or practice into routine service” ( Proctor et al., 2013 , p. 2).

This question has shaped my work for the past 15 years, as well as the research priorities of several funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and the World Health Organization. Indeed, a National Institutes of Health program announcement—Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health ( National Institutes of Health, 2016 )—identified the discovery of effective implementation strategies as a primary purpose of implementation science. To date, the implementation science literature cannot yet answer that important question, but we are making progress.

To identify implementation strategies, our teams first turned to the literature—a literature that we found to be scattered across a wide range of journals and disciplines. Most articles were not empirical, and most articles used widely differing terms to characterize implementation strategies. We conducted a structured literature review to generate common nomenclature and a taxonomy of implementation strategies. That review yielded 63 distinct implementation strategies, which fell into six groupings: planning, educating, financing, restructuring, managing quality, and attending to policy context ( Powell et al., 2012 ).

Our team refined that compilation, using Delphi techniques and concept mapping to develop conceptually distinct categories of implementation strategies ( Powell et al., 2015 ; Waltz et al., 2014 ). The refined compilation of 73 discrete implementation strategies was then further organized into nine clusters:

changing agency infrastructure,
using financial strategies,
supporting clinicians,
providing interactive assistance,
training and educating stakeholders,
adapting and tailoring interventions to context,
developing stakeholder relationships,
using evaluative and iterative strategies, and
engaging consumers.

These taxonomies of implementation strategies position the field for more robust research on implementation processes. The language used to describe implementation strategies has not yet “gelled” and has been described as a “Tower of Babel” ( McKibbon et al., 2010 ). Therefore, we also developed guidelines for reporting the components of strategies ( Proctor et al., 2013 ) so researchers and implementers would have more behaviorally specific information about what a strategy is, who does it, when, and for how long. The value of such reporting guidelines is illustrated in the work of Gold and colleagues (2016) .

What have we learned, through our own program of research on implementation strategies—the “how to” of improving practice? First, we have been able to identify from practice-based evidence the implementation strategies used most often. Using novel activity logs to track implementation strategies, Bunger and colleagues (2017) found that strategies such as quality improvement tools, using data experts, providing supervision, and sending clinical reminders were frequently used to facilitate delivery of behavioral health interventions within a child-welfare setting and were perceived by agency leadership as contributing to project success.

Second, reflecting the complexity of quality improvement processes, we have learned that there is no magic bullet ( Powell, Proctor, & Glass, 2013 ). Our study of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs clinics working to implement evidence-based HIV treatment found that implementers used an average of 25 (plus or minus 14) different implementation strategies ( Rogal, et al., 2017 ). Moreover, the number of implementation strategies used was positively associated with the number of new treatment starts. These findings suggest that implementing new interventions requires considerable effort and resources.

To advance our understanding of the effectiveness of implementation strategies, our teams have conducted a systematic review ( Powell et al., 2013 ), tested specific strategies, and captured practice-based evidence from on-the-ground implementers. Testing the effectiveness of implementation strategies has been identified as a top research priority by the IOM (2009) . In work with Charles Glisson in St. Louis, our 15-agency-based randomized clinical trial found that an organizational-focused intervention—the attachment, regulatory, and competency model—improved agency culture and climate, stimulated more clinicians to enroll in evidence-based-practice training, and boosted clinical effect sizes of various evidence-based practices ( Glisson, Williams, Hemmelgarn, Proctor, & Green, 2016a , 2016b ). And in a hospital critical care unit, the implementation strategies of developing a team, selecting and using champions, provider education sessions, and audit and feedback helped increase team adherence to phlebotomy guidelines ( Steffen et al., in press ).

We are also learning about the value of different strategies. Experts in implementation science and implementation practice identified as most important the strategies of “use evaluate and iterative approaches” and “train and educate stakeholders.” Reported as less helpful were such strategies as “access new funding streams” and “remind clinicians of practices to use” ( Waltz et al., 2015 ). Successful implementers in Veterans Affairs clinics relied more heavily on such strategies as “change physical structures and equipment” and “facilitate relay of clinical data to providers” than did less successful implementers ( Rogal et al., 2017 ).

Many strategies have yet to be investigated empirically, as has the role of dissemination and implementation organizations—organizations that function to promote, provide information about, provide training in, and scale up specific treatments. Most evidence-based practices used in behavioral health, including most listed on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Registry of Promising and Effective Practices, are disseminated and distributed by dissemination and implementation organizations. Unlike drugs and devices, psychosocial interventions have no Federal Drug Administration-like delivery system. Kreuter and Casey (2012) urge better understanding and use of the intervention “delivery system,” or mechanisms to bring treatment discoveries to the attention of practitioners and into use in practice settings.

Implementation strategies have been shown to boost clinical effectiveness ( Glisson et al., 2010 ), reduce staff turnover ( Aarons, Sommerfield, Hect, Silvosky, & Chaffin, 2009 ) and help reduce disparities in care ( Balicer et al., 2015 ).

Future directions: Research on implementation strategies

My work in implementation science has helped build intellectual capital for the rapidly growing field of dissemination and implementation science, leading teams to distinguish, clearly define, develop taxonomies, and stimulate more systematic work to advance the conceptual, linguistic, and methodological clarity in the field. Yet, we continue to lack understanding of many issues. What strategies are used in usual implementation practice, by whom, for which empirically supported interventions? What strategies are effective in which organizational and policy contexts? Which strategies are effective in attaining which specific implementation outcomes? For example, are the strategies that are effective for initial adoption also effective for scale up, spread, and sustained use of interventions? Social workers have the skill set for roles as implementation facilitators, and refining packages of implementation strategies that are effective in social service and behavioral health settings could boost the visibility, scale, and impact of our work.

The Third Generation and Counting

Social work faces grand, often daunting challenges. We need to develop a more robust base of evidence about the effectiveness of interventions and make that evidence more relevant, accessible, and applicable to social work practitioners, whether they work in communities, agencies, policy arenas, or a host of novel settings. We need to advance measurement-based care so our value as a field is recognized. We need to know how to bring proven interventions to scale for population-level impact. We need to discover ways to build capacity of social service agencies and the communities in which they reside. And we need to learn how to sustain advances in care once we achieve them ( Proctor et al., 2015 ). Our challenges are indeed grand, far outstripping our resources.

So how dare we speak of a quality quest? Does it not seem audacious to seek the highest standards in caring for the most vulnerable, especially in an era when we face a new political climate that threatens vulnerable groups and promises to strip resources from health and social services? Members of our profession are underpaid, and most of our agencies lack the data infrastructure required for assessment and evaluation. Quality may be an audacious goal, but as social workers we can pursue no less. By virtue of our code of ethics, our commitment to equity, and our skills in intervening on multiple levels of systems and communities, social workers are ideally suited for advancing quality.

Who will conduct the needed research? Who will pioneer its translation to improving practice? Social work practice can be only as strong as its research base; the responsibility for developing that base, and hence improve practice, is lodged within social work research.

If my greatest challenge is pursuing this quest, my greatest joy is in mentoring the next generation for this work. My research mentoring has always been guided by the view that the ultimate purpose of research in the helping professions is the production and systemization of knowledge for use by practitioners ( Rosen & Proctor, 1978 ). For 27 years, the National Institute of Mental Health has supported training in mental health services research based in the Center for Mental Health Services Research ( Hasche, Perron, & Proctor, 2009 ; Proctor & McMillen, 2008 ). And, with colleague John Landsverk, we are launching my sixth year leading the Implementation Research Institute, a training program for implementation science supported by the National Institute of Mental Health ( Proctor et al., 2013 ). We have trained more than 50 social work, psychology, anthropology, and physician researchers in implementation science for mental health. With three more cohorts to go, we are working to assess what works in research training for implementation science. Using bibliometric analysis, we have learned that intensive training and mentoring increases research productivity in the form of published papers and grants that address how to implement evidence-based care in mental health and addictions. And, through use of social network analysis, we have learned that every “dose” of mentoring increases scholarly collaboration when measured two years later ( Luke, Baumann, Carothers, Landsverk, & Proctor, 2016 ).

As his student, I was privileged to learn lessons in mentoring from Aaron Rosen. He treated his students as colleagues, he invited them in to work on the most challenging of questions, and he pursued his work with joy. When he treated me as a colleague, I felt empowered. When he invited me to work with him on the field’s most vexing challenges, I felt inspired. And as he worked with joy, I learned that work pursued with joy doesn’t feel like work at all. And now the third, fourth, and fifth generations of social work researchers are pursuing tough challenges and the quality quest for social work practice. May seasoned and junior researchers work collegially and with joy, tackling the profession’s toughest research challenges, including the quest for high-quality social work services.

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this paper was supported by IRI (5R25MH0809160), Washington University ICTS (2UL1 TR000448-08), Center for Mental Health Services Research, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Center for Dissemination and Implementation, Institute for Public Health, Washington University in St. Louis.

This invited article is based on the 2017 Aaron Rosen Lecture presented by Enola Proctor at the Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference—“Ensure Healthy Development for All Youth”—held January 11–15, 2017, in New Orleans, LA. The annual Aaron Rosen Lecture features distinguished scholars who have accumulated a body of significant and innovative scholarship relevant to practice, the research base for practice, or effective utilization of research in practice.

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Transformative Social Work - Open Access Journal - TSW - Image of a tree in red orange and yellow

Transforming field education in social work: A special issue on field education

Julie L. Drolet University of Calgary

Welcome to this special issue of Transformative Social Work , dedicated to social work field education. As we navigate a rapidly changing world, the need for dynamic and impactful field education has never been more crucial. This special issue brings together a diverse range of perspectives and innovative approaches, highlighting how field education can be transformative in both practice and theory.

In this collection of thought-provoking articles, we explore the latest research and new practices that are reshaping the way social work students, field educators, and practitioners engage with the field. Articles include discussions on Indigenous field education, developmental and green social work approaches, and field models such as macro placements, self-directed placements, and rotational hospital placements. We also feature the experiences of practicum students during the COVID-19 pandemic and examine what motivates field instructors to engage in field education.

As we look to the future, the aspirations and commitments articulated by our contributors in this special issue offer a hopeful vision. The articles in this issue illuminate the adaptability of social work students, field educators, researchers, and practitioners, particularly in the face of unprecedented global disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The innovations not only address current challenges but also lay the groundwork for more dynamic and responsive field education programs. There is a collective resolve to integrate lessons learned, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and uphold the principles of social justice that underpin our profession. By doing so, we can ensure that social work field education continues to evolve in ways that are inclusive, effective, and aligned with the needs of our diverse communities. We invite you to explore these contributions, reflect on their insights, and consider how they might inspire and inform your own practice in field education.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

CC BY-NC-SA : This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.

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Social Work Theories
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What Is Social Work and Why is Social Work Important?
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COMMENTS

Practice Research in Social Work: Themes, Opportunities and Impact
Practice research in social work is evolving and has been iteratively defined through a series of statements over the last 15 years (Epstein et al., 2015; Fook & Evans, 2011; ... The second was an evaluation of a Practice and Theory project in Finland, which was a collaboration between a team manager in a service delivery organisation and a ...
Theories Used in Social Work
Common Social Work Theories. Social workers can incorporate components of several different clinical theories in their work with clients. Some popular approaches for social workers include theories of systems, social learning, psychosocial development, psychodynamic, transpersonal, and rational choice. Many of these theories have been developed ...
What Are The Theories & Practice Models Used in Social Work?
As a social worker, more knowledge can lead to a more informed approach, and more effective client interactions. Here, we'll dig into decades of research to share a comprehensive set of social work theories and practice models, including: Systems Theory. Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory. Psychodynamic Theory.
15 Important Social Work Theories and Methods
It encourages social workers to address the complex, dynamic interactions between a person and their environment. 7. Empowerment Theory. Empowerment Theory is centered on the process of increasing personal, interpersonal, or political power so individuals and communities can take action to improve their circumstances.
Back to the Future: Using Social Work Research to Improve Social Work
Abstract This article traces themes over time for conducting social work research to improve social work practice. The discussion considers 3 core themes: (a) the scientific practitioner, including different models for applying this perspective to research and practice; (b) intervention research; and (c) implementation science. While not intended to be a comprehensive review of these themes ...
Evidence-Based Practice
Evidence-Based Practice. The term evidence-based practice (EBP) was used initially in relation to medicine, but has since been adopted by many fields including education, child welfare, mental heath, and criminal justice. The Institute of Medicine (2001) defines evidence-based medicine as the integration of best researched evidence and clinical ...
Using Theory in Practice
Social work theories help to understand the nature of social work practice along with the perspectives of clients being served (ibid., 6). In the group, theory discussions included explanatory generalizations and conceptualizations based on research about the client world or research resulting in implications for social work practice.
Key Concepts and Theory in Social Work
Theory in social work according to Hodgson and Watts is an interactive, critical, and interpretive way of understanding social phenomena. The focus on this book is on discovery through the exploration of key concepts, values, and skills. Critical thinking about theory is encouraged by the strategic use of key questions, exercises at the end of ...
The Role of Theories in Social Work Practice
The person-in-environment perspective, problem-centered practice, and strengths perspective represent larger viewpoints that can be applied across social work practice. Most important, a professional knowledge base is grounded in a history of observations and experiences based on years of social work practice offering a broader perspective for ...
Full article: A Research-Informed Human Behavior and Social Work
The Resilience-Enhancing Stress Model (RESM) The RESM, a social work practice model that offers a research-informed base for understanding human behavior and practice, is used here as a case in point to illustrate how practitioners can adopt research-informed human behavior theory (Greene, Citation 2014; Greene et al., Citation in press, Citation 2021, Citation 2019).
Power-informed practice in social work
Power remains an important phenomenon within modern day social theory (Reed & Weinman, 2019) and a significant focal point of contemporary social work, clearly visible in notions of empowerment and anti-oppressive practice (British Association of Social Work, 2021; Thompson, 2016).Whilst such terms are discursively evident, the concept of power remains contested.
Social Work Research Methods
Social work researchers will send out a survey, receive responses, aggregate the results, analyze the data, and form conclusions based on trends. Surveys are one of the most common research methods social workers use — and for good reason. They tend to be relatively simple and are usually affordable.
Theories Used in Social Work Practice & Practice Models
The model includes seven stages: assess safety and lethality, rapport building, problem identification, address feelings, generate alternatives, develop an action plan, and follow up. This social work practice model is commonly used with clients who are expressing suicidal ideation. To learn more about SocialWork@Simmons, request information ...
6 Important Theories in Social Work & 6 Practice Models
5. Solution-focused therapy. Solution-focused therapy involves the social worker and client identifying a problem and creating a solution based on the individual's strengths. It's a short-term practice model that focuses on helping clients cope with challenges using specific behaviors.
Research Practicum: An Experiential Model for Social Work Research
Research training is a key area of social work education and integral to the success of future practitioners. Innovative pedagogical models for teaching research have been proposed, including those based on experiential approaches. This exploratory study evaluated a research practicum (RP) model for social work students.
(PDF) Strengths-Based Approaches in Social Work and Social Care
social work and social care services for adults for at least. a decade. Strengths-based approaches aim to change the. way individuals with care and support needs are assessed. and supported by ...
11 Important Social Work Theories and Methods
The following 11 social work theories and methods are some of the most important principles in the field today: 1. Psychosocial Theory. Psychosocial theory, which Erik Erikson developed in the 1950s, is the main principle of social work. Also referred to as person-in-environment (PIE) theory, psychosocial theory posits that a person develops a ...
The Pursuit of Quality for Social Work Practice: Three Generations and
Our literature review of 13 major social work journals over 5 years of published research revealed that only 15% of published social work research addressed interventions. About a third of studies described social problems, and about half explored factors associated with the problem ( Rosen, Proctor, & Staudt, 2003 ).
Research, theories and models
Why using research, theories and frameworks is important. It's important that you understand developments in social work theory and practice, so you have up to date knowledge when using your professional judgement and making decisions. By proactively using social work research, theories and frameworks, you can view your practice in different ...
Journal of Social Work: Sage Journals
The Journal of Social Work is a forum for the publication, dissemination and debate of key ideas and research in social work. The journal aims to advance theoretical understanding, shape policy, and inform practice, and welcomes submissions from all … | View full journal description. This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication ...
Full article: How social workers reflect in action and when and why
Abstract. The need for professionals to use reflection to learn about and develop their practice is now a universally stated goal. In social work however there has been little research into whether and how reflection in action actually occurs and this paper explores the possibilities and limits to reflective practice by drawing on research that observed encounters between social workers and ...
Transforming field education in social work: A special issue on field
Welcome to this special issue of Transformative Social Work, dedicated to social work field education. As we navigate a rapidly changing world, the need for dynamic and impactful field education has never been more crucial. This special issue brings together a diverse range of perspectives and innovative approaches, highlighting how field education can be transformative in both practice and ...
The Teaching and Learning of Communication Skills in Social Work
Purpose: This article presents a systematic review of research into the teaching and learning of communication skills in social work education.Methods: We conducted a systematic review, adhering to the Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews for Interventions and PRISMA reporting guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.Results: Sixteen records reporting on fifteen studies met the ...
Why your help is unhelpful: A multistage mediation model exploring
Recent occupational health research has begun exploring unhelpful workplace social support (UWSS). UWSS refers to actions taken by a colleague that the recipient believes are intended to be helpful but are perceived as ineffective. For example, a colleague may provide help that is not wanted or do something incorrectly while providing aid. Despite the perceived good intentions of UWSS ...
Professional judgement and decision-making in social work
The first focused upon risk in social work (Whittaker & Taylor, 2017) and this special issue focuses upon professional judgement and decision-making. It consists of eight articles across a range of countries and settings that examine key issues that are relevant to practitioners and managers as well as researchers and policy-makers.
Writing about group work and for social work with groups
Many of the papers published in Social Work with Groups are research articles that typically report on the results of a research study. These types of papers may contain figures and tables that show a map of qualitative analyses or a table of quantitative results, demographic characteristics of a population, and/or descriptions of group activities.

Theories Used in Social Work

Common Theories and Practice Models in Social Work

Why is Theory Important in Social Work?

Common Social Work Theories

Common Practice Models in Social Work

Reviewed by:

Melissa Russiano, LCSW, LISW

Social Learning Theory

Theories & Practice Models Used in Social Work

Sponsored online social work programs

University of Denver

List of Theories Used in Social Work

Systems Theory

Systems Theory Related Resources

Behaviorism and Behavioral Theory

Cognitive Theory in Social Work

Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory Related Resources

Drive Theory

Psychodynamic Related Resources

Transpersonal Theory

Psychosocial Developmental Theory

Developmental Perspective Related Resources

Social Exchange Theory

Rational Choice Perspective Related Resources

Practice Models Used in Social Work

Narrative Therapy

Task-Centered Practice

Solution-Focused Therapy

Social Work Research Methods That Drive the Practice

Data-Driven Work

Quantitative vs. Qualitative

Quantitative Research

Qualitative Research

Mixed Methods Research

The Importance of Research Design

Research Methods in Social Work

Program Evaluations

Needs Assessments

Randomized Controlled Trials

Descriptive Studies

Single-System Designs

Learn More About Social Work Research Methods

Theories Used in Social Work Practice & Practice Models

Social Work Theories

Social Work Practice Models

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Six important theories in social work

Why is theory important in social work?

University of Denver

Fordham University

Applying social work theory to practice

List of important social work theories

1. Social learning theory

2. Systems theory

3. Psychosocial development theory

4. Psychodynamic theory

5. Social exchange theory

6. Rational choice theory

Six practice models in social work

1. Cognitive behavioral therapy

2. Crisis intervention model

3. Narrative therapy

4. Problem-solving model

5. Solution-focused therapy

6. Task-centered practice

Resources to explore social work theories

Introductory books

Other online resources

Science-based social work theory helps social workers and their clients succeed

Strengths-Based Approaches in Social Work and Social Care: Reviewing the Evidence

11 Important Social Work Theories and Methods

1. Psychosocial Theory

2. Attachment Theory

3. Systems Theory

4. Behavioral Theory

5. Cognitive Theory

6. Cognitive Behavioral Theory

7. Motivational Theory

8. Empowerment Theory

9. Task-Centered Model