Behavioral social work is the application of behavior analysis to the field of social work. There are behavioral social work interventions for individuals, groups, and communities. Nevertheless, behavioral social work is far from a widely adopted approach among social work practitioners. A reason for the underuse might be seen in the fact that…

It is a surprising fact that social work is not conceived as a scientific discipline in many countries and especially in the United States. It is surprising because the extent of academic social work programs and the scientific output of people working at schools of social work are significant. And it is surprising anyway if social work is…

Objectives: The current article describes the process evaluation of a social early warning system (SEWS) for the prevention of child maltreatment in the federal state of Hamburg. This prevention initiative targets expectant mothers and their partners including an initial screening of risk factors for child maltreatment, a subsequent structured…

This article reviews several decades of the author's meta-analytic and experimental research on the conditions under which nonrandomized experiments can approximate the results from randomized experiments (REs). Several studies make clear that we can expect accurate effect estimates from the regression discontinuity design, though its statistical…

This article refers sympathetically to the thoughtful debates and positions in the "Research on Social Work Practice" ("RSWP"; Special Issue, July, 2008 issue) on "What Works? Modernizing the Knowledge-Base of Social Work." It highlights the need for empirical efficacy and effectiveness research in social work and…

The child welfare system in Germany has been described as family service-oriented because families in need are entitled to request family support services. If there is any form of child maltreatment, there may be some kind of mandatory state intervention to protect the child. Using trends in the number of children affected by maltreatment, the…