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The Center For Health Administration Studies (CHAS) is an interdisciplinary health policy and services research center located at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Since its inception, CHAS has pursued the mission of conducting and promoting research and knowledge development to reduce health inequities and improve access. The move of CHAS to the School of Social Service Administration from the Graduate School of Business in 1991 resulted in innovative programming reflecting the changing landscape of health care, passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicaid expansion, and the growing interest of social work researchers in social determinants of health, behavioral health and integrated health and social services. The success and distinction of CHAS over its eighty year history offers lessons to social work regarding the sustainability of a research center in a graduate school of social work.

Objective: This article advances understanding of social work science by examining the content and methods of highly utilized or cited journal articles in social work. Methods: A data base of the 100 most frequently cited articles from 79 social work journals was coded and categorized into three primary domains: content, research versus nonresearch, and, for research articles only, method used. Results: Findings show that knowledge utilization occurs on a conceptual level (related to professional developments, theory, and service needs of specific populations) as well as an instrumental level (such as related to intervention effectiveness). Fifty-one percent of highly cited articles were empirical and, of these, 33% relied on descriptive methods, 45% on explanatory methods, and 22% on control methods used primarily to study intervention effectiveness. Conclusion: Operationalizing the utilization of scientific knowledge in terms of the demand for specific journal articles reveals the content and methodological domains that characterize extant social work science. Six strategies in research, practice, and education are proposed to advance the further development of social work science.

Larry Palinkas advances the developing science of social work by providing an explanation of how social science research methods, both qualitative and quantitative, can improve our capacity to draw casual inferences. Understanding causal relations and making causal inferences--with the promise of being able to predict and control outcomes--is fundamental to the scientific enterprise. This response builds on Palinkas paper with two points: (1) The search for causality is inevitable, i.e., hard-wired into research decision-making process. (2) Thinking slowly about research methods, i.e., avoiding the influence of heuristics that may influence decision-making in predictable ways, will reduce bias and improve causal inferences.

Despite the broad recognition in social work that services are more effective when they are tailored to individual client needs, we have only limited evidence of the impact that services matched to client needs have on treatment outcomes. This study examines gender differences in the impact of matched services, access services, and outcome-targeted services on substance abuse treatment outcomes by using data collected from 1992 through 1997 for the National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study, a prospective, cohort study of substance abuse treatment programs and clients. The analytic sample consists of 3,027 clients (1,105 women and 1,922 men) who reported needed services from 59 treatment facilities. Findings from the study indicate that overall programs have only limited success in targeting services to client needs, but when they do, receipt of substance abuse counseling and matched services predicts both remaining in treatment and reduced posttreatment substance use for both women and men, but especially for women.

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is an orientation to practice that values evidence as a resource for clinical decision making while recognizing that evidence alone is never sufficient to make a clinical decision. Critics of EBP typically ignore, negate, or misrepresent the role of practitioner thinking processes and expertise in clinical settings. The authors believe that, far from being a mechanistic process that ignores practitioner expertise, reflection and critical thinking are essential to implementing EBP in real-world clinical practice. The purpose of this article is to provide guidance for how practitioners bring their expertise to bear when engaging in the process of EBP. The authors use a social work practice scenario to illustrate the application of practitioner expertise in each of the five steps of EBP.

Alcohol and other drug abuse is a major problem for children and families involved with public child welfare. Substance abuse compromises appropriate parenting practices and increases the risk of child maltreatment. A substantial proportion of substantiated child abuse and neglect reports involve parental substance abuse. Once in the system, children of substance-abusing families experience significantly longer stays in foster care and significantly lower rates of reunification. To address these problems, child welfare systems are developing service integration models that incorporate both substance abuse and child welfare services. This study provides an initial examination of the effectiveness of one service integration model that emphasizes the provision of intensive case management to link substance abuse and child welfare services. The authors used an experimental design and focused particular attention on two outcomes: access to substance abuse services and family reunification. The findings indicate that the families assigned to the experimental group used substance abuse services at a significantly higher rate and were more likely to achieve family reunification than were families in the control group.

Eight papers discuss current ideas about what can be accomplished when services are provided for adolescent parents. Topics include programs for high-risk adolescents, services and employment opportunities for pregnant and parenting adolescents, school-based clinics, evaluation of a teen pregnancy program, costs/benefits of deferred teenage births, and adolescent parenting programs. (SLD)

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2005.10.012 Byline: Jeanne C. Marsh (a), Joseph P. Ryan (b), Sam Choi (b), Mark F. Testa (b) Keywords: Family reunification; Integrated services; Child welfare system; Multiple problem families Abstract: Child welfare clients with co-occurring problems are recognized as clients who have difficulty achieving positive child welfare outcomes. The current study focuses on families in the child welfare system with co-occurring problems and the impact of such problems on the likelihood of reunification. The current study contributes to the literature on service integration by examining whether it is necessary to go beyond assessment and service access to insure families make progress in each co-occurring problem area to achieve reunification. The sample is comprised of 724 substance-abusing families enrolled in the Illinois Title IV-E Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (AODA) Waiver Demonstration. Data on client progress consisted of provider ratings completed quarterly to track progress related to problems of substance abuse, domestic violence, housing and mental health. The findings indicate that progress in resolving co-occurring problem areas does increase the likelihood of achieving family reunification. Thus, the provision of the child welfare service model alone is insufficient. In order for child welfare systems to increase reunification rates, services must target the specific needs of individual families and assist them in achieving progress within co-occurring problem areas. Successful integrated service programs must identify the range of specific problems that clients are dealing with and insure that they address and resolve these problems in order to increase the likelihood of family reunification. Author Affiliation: (a) School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, 969 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA (b) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801, USA Article History: Received 19 August 2005; Revised 27 September 2005; Accepted 15 October 2005

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2005.01.002 Byline: Jeanne C. Marsh (a), Dingcai Cao (b) Keywords: Substance abuse treatment; Child welfare practice; Post treatment drug use Abstract: Substance abuse treatment in parents of young children is an important element of child welfare services. This study compares the predictive factors of post-treatment drug use in organizational, service and individual characteristics between parents and non-parents, mothers and fathers. The analysis sample is derived from the National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (NTIES), a longitudinal study designed to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the specialty substance abuse service system. The results show that treatment duration and the frequency of counseling available in treatment facilities are the most predictive factors for parents when other factors are controlled. Further, treatment duration, onsite service availability, and frequency of counseling available are significant factors in predicting post-treatment drug use for fathers, but not for mothers. These findings have implications for improving substance abuse treatment services for parents in child welfare settings. Author Affiliation: (a) School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, 969 E. 60th Street, IL 60637, USA (b) Departments of Health Studies and Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Article History: Received 10 November 2004; Revised 4 January 2005; Accepted 5 January 2005