• Summary: This article describes how a reliance upon social and behavioral science research is the feature distinguishing modern professional social work from prior non-professional efforts at providing social care. A number of formal efforts that attempted to more closely link science and practice are described, including the empirical clinical practice movement, the empirically supported treatments initiative, and, most recently, evidence-based practice (EBP).
• Findings: EBP is correctly seen as a process of inquiry intended to help practitioners and their clients make important decisions about the services the clients receive. EBP is a process, a verb, not a noun. There is no such thing as evidence-based practices, since in EBP one decides what services to provide by taking into account not only research evidence but also client preferences and values, situational circumstances, professional ethics, the practitioner’s existing skills, and available resources.
• Applications: From this perspective it is a misuse of the term EBP to refer to specific interventions or assessment methods as evidence-based. At best, interventions or techniques may be labeled as empirically supported or research-supported. The current status of EBP within American social work is seen as healthy and growing, although misconceptions regarding this process are common.
Currently, the codes of ethics developed for social workers by NASW and other professional associations do not suggest that clients have the right to receive effective, empirically validated treatment. In addition, the codes place no explicit emphasis on empirically validated treatments when referring to social work competence, education, research, supervision, or the profession as a whole. Does the social work client have the right to receive effective treatment when such interventions are known to be available? Should the NASW Code of Ethics include such requirements to encourage more responsible behavior on the part of social work practitioners? This article considers some of the issues involved in this debate and offers suggestions as to how codes of ethics could be modified to include clients' right to receive effective treatment and social workers' obligation to be educated about and to provide such treatment.
IN TODAY'S GLOBAL, "bigger is better" business environment, the need for intrapersonal awareness and interpersonal communication skills is greater than ever. Business schools are being asked to address this need by increasing attention to communication coursework in the business curricula. In fact, the Management Education Task Force of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) issued a report in April 2002 that called for an increase of instruction in communication, leadership, and interpersonal skills to make curricula more relevant to "today's global workplace" (Doria, Rozanski, & Cohen, 2003). Furthermore, as a response to feedback from employers, alumni, and executive advisors, business schools across the country are addressing the need for an increased emphasis on "people skills" by teaching business students the soft skills that set exemplary managers apart from their typical peers (Alsop, 2002, p. R11) and that enhance their ability to negotiate the "interpersonal dimension" of work life (Muir, 2004).Whereas the ability to gather, interpret, analyze, and respond to data may be a function of technical competency, the ability to receive, interpret, analyze, and respond to messages, both external and internal, is regulated by one's emotional intelligence (EI). EI is "a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' 44 Authors' Note: The authors would like to thank the journal reviewers for their helpful suggestions that made this a stronger article. We also wish to thank our colleague Theresa Moran for her insightful editorial comments.
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