An examination of strengths and evidence-based research in child welfare journals

Toni Chance
George Warren Brown SSW, Washington University in St. Louis
One Brookings Drive
Campus Box 1196
St. Louis MO 63139
USA
Phone: 314-935-8173
FAX: 314-935-8111
Email: trc2@gwbmail.wustl.edu
 
Melinda Gushwa
George Warren Brown SSW, Washington University in St. Louis
One Brookings Drive
Campus Box 1196
St. Louis MO 63139
USA
Phone: 314-647-0697
FAX: 314-935-8111
Email: mkg1@gwbmail.wustl.edu
 
Purpose: Child welfare practitioners are required to strike a delicate balance between assessing and maintaining child safety, while concurrently providing sufficient services to parents. Continued focus on family-centered services has highlighted the importance of strengths-based practice in child welfare work. Additionally, current trends toward evidence-based practice point to the need for child welfare scholars to provide practitioners with research that is both empirical and strengths-based. Child maltreatment journals represent a primary source of this research. This presentation builds on a previous study by Rosen, Proctor, and Staudt (1999) which assessed social work journals' contribution to knowledge development and applicability to the practice setting. The current presentation reviews child welfare journals to determine the availability of empirical research to child welfare practitioners providing social work interventions to children and families, with additional emphasis on journals' contribution to strengths-based practice.

Methods: Research articles published between 1999-2002 in three refereed professional child maltreatment journals were reviewed. Articles were classified into three knowledge-purpose categories. Operational definitions and coding procedures were duplicated from the previous study. Articles were also rated in terms of inclusion of a strengths-based practice perspective.

Results: Findings are consistent with the previous study and indicate that over half of all articles are descriptive, more than one-third are explanatory, and only about five percent are control (efficacy/effectiveness studies), with less than half of one percent of intervention articles addressing the strengths-based approach.

Implications: Child maltreatment journals offer little practical guidance for child welfare practitioners that inform evidence and strengths-based interventions. In order to provide quality services, practitioners must have ample access to meaningful and pertinent intervention research.  Practitioners and the families with whom they work will all benefit when child maltreatment journals publish more research which promotes family strengths and is applicable to the day-to-day challenges of child welfare work.