Intervention Research

Design and Development for Human Service

Edwin J Thomas, Jack Rothman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136585579
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

This interdisciplinary book presents a comprehensive conceptual and methodological treatment of intervention research, a developing area of empirical inquiry that aims to make research more directly relevant and applicable to practice. Intervention Research contains original chapters by the most highly regarded scholars in the field. These experts explain how to distinguish intervention research from other modalities, demonstrate a new model of research for the design and development of interventions, and provide guidelines for conducting intervention research in practice with individuals, families, and community organizations. Providing useful observations and a wealth of ideas, authors offer conceptual schemes, results from recent design and development studies, and strategies and methodologies to help professionals make their research more usable and meaningful. Chapters cover such important topics as the acquisition of relevant knowledge, meta-analysis in intervention research, methods and issues in designing and developing interventions, and field testing and evaluating innovative practice interventions. The book depicts intervention research through case illustrations and promotes the use of new technologies for developing innovative practice methods. Intervention Research focuses on Intervention Design and Development--the part of intervention research involving the creation of reliable, practical tools of social intervention in user-ready form. It sets forth systematic procedures for designing, testing, evaluating, and refining needed social technology and for disseminating proven techniques and programs to professionals in the community.Intervention Research has a base in social work, but is highly interdisciplinary. Authors contributing to this text come from a variety of fields, including psychology, sociology, education, information science, and communications. Professors and educators working in schools of public health, education, urban planning, nursing, and public administration, or teaching courses in psychology, sociology, or upper-level social work, will find this book full of comprehensive and practical information that is advantageous for their work.

Appendix A

Fostering Participation
and Promoting Innovation-
Handbook for Human Service
Professionals

Jack Rothman
Joseph G. Teresa
John L. Erlich

INTRODUCTION

Mental health professionals realize that they cannot serve families and individuals in a vacuum. In an increasingly complex and interdependent environment, family services must consider social conditions that strain family life, and community forces that aid family unity and strength.

A group of mental health specialists meeting at Boston University stated the matter squarely:

Increasingly, the mental health professions are delivering services to the community-not just responding to the onset of pathology. A broad spectrum of professional activity is emerging, generally characterized as community mental health. It involves active participation in community affairs on the part of mental health personnel, preventive intervention at the community level, and collaboration with responsible laymen in reducing community tensions. Consultant services are being offered to the institutions of the community and new methods are being developed for working with and through other professional groups in support of mental health. The community itself is being taught to collaborate in creating health-giving environments.

Gerald Caplan and Henry Grunebaum, leading community mental health theorists, point out the centrality of family integration here:

Intervention should support the integrity of the family in its own home and should prevent its fragmentation.

A wide range of programs has been developed within this broadened framework of service. For example:

•	Family and Child Advocacy Programs (social legislation, child advocacy councils)
•	Family life education (shifting family roles, discipline, understanding feelings)
•	Consultation to primary care-giving institutions (such as schools and community centers)
•	Special services to high risk populations (minorities, preschoolers, the mentally retarded, the aging)
•	Mobilizing community resources to assist families (coordination, general health care)
•	Halfway houses and community placement (preparing patients for transition back into home and community)
•	Support of natural, informal care-giving systems (neighborhood groups, opinion leaders)
•	Outreach and decentralized services (hotlines, crisis intervention)
•	Encouraging meaningful community participation and problem solving by families (social action, creative use of leisure).

Purpose of this Handbook

The above initiatives require skills and strategies that are not often found in standard clinical and casework practice. A deficit in such skills has thwarted many well-intentioned mental health and family service professionals.

This handbook will offer you two fundamental sets of skills: fostering participation in your agency (clients, staff members) or in the community (residents public officials, other agencies) through the principle of relevant benefits (rewarding desired behavior); promoting a new service or program in your agency or community through the principle of partialization (starting with a small group and spreading to a larger one).

These intervention strategies are basic for gaining the involvement of key parties such as clients, colleagues, or community agencies, and for setting up innovative programs, such as outreach or advocacy. In addition to expressing commonsensical ideas, the principles are consistent with experience in systems intervention. As will be shown, they are supported by basic research. Among the many tools in the professional’s kit, these two may be drawn upon frequently.

Practical Advice Derived from Research

This handbook was developed over a six-year period at The University of Michigan, through a research grant by the National Institute of Mental Health. The intervention principles (“Action Guidelines”) resulted from an exhaustive search of the social science research literature. They were field tested and made operational by human service professionals in a variety of agencies (community mental health, family service, schools, courts, planning councils, etc.). Based on the field experience a working manual was composed, refined, and streamlined to produce this handbook. In the problems and actions described, we will concentrate on the experience in community mental health and family service settings, although examples from other agency situations will be introduced when useful.

How to Use the Handbook

Different readers may use the handbook in different ways. Some users may be able to employ the Action Guidelines with full autonomy within their existing assignments, for example, increasing the extent of client or community participation in a regular family life education program. In other cases, where a totally new program, such as family advocacy or a community residence, is the aim, the cooperation or approval of agency colleagues, administrators, or the board may be necessary.

This handbook is not meant to be a conventional textbook. Rather, the concepts will best be understood through an attempt to apply them.

Each chapter contains a “Getting Started” section. Here we pose a series of questions to help you through the planning phase. An “Initial Log” form (in two parts) is provided for noting your preliminary thoughts. The emphasis is on specifying realistic and short-term goals and clear means to reach them. Examples from the field study may aid in filling out the form.

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Conceptual Overview
• Problem Analysis and Project Planning
• Information Gathering and Synthesis
• Design
• Early Development and Pilot Testing
• Evaluation and Advanced Development
• Dissemination
• Appendixes: Illustrative Practice Tools-Design and Development Products of Intervention Research
• Subject Index
• Name Index