Outcome-Informed Evidence-Based Practice

Provides practical ways to measure and monitor client progress.

Part of Advancing Core Competencies Series, a unique series that helps students taking advanced social work courses apply CSWE’s core competencies and practice behaviors examples to specialized fields of practice.

Outcome-Informed Evidence Based Practice shows students practical ways to measure and monitor client progress and use this feedback to help clients achieve their goals.

Outcome Informed Evidence Based Practice places emphasis on social workers who provide direct services to clients, not only in clinical settings, but in a broad array of other settings such as schools, health care, social service agencies, residential facilities, and more.  Using case examples in almost every chapter, this text highlights the diversity of clients encountered by social workers, providing real-world contexts for discussing chapter concepts. This text is also useful for psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, nurses, physical and occupational therapists, and other allied health care and social service professionals.

Learning Goals

Upon completing the book, readers should be able to:

• Help clients make the best decisions by measuring and monitoring client progress, and modifying interventions accordingly,
• Graph, analyze, and interpret their client’s progress
• Recognize social workers should systematically measure and monitor their clients’ outcomes at regular frequent intervals
• Identify measurement issues that influence the quality of the information collected by them and their client

John G. Orme is a professor at the University of Tennessee in the College of Social Work. He has an M.S.W. and Ph.D. in social work from Washington University in St. Louis. He also completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship on the Delivery of Mental Health Services, University of Chicago, Department of Behavioral Sciences, Committee on Methodology of Behavioral Research. Prior to joining the University of Tennessee faculty he was a faculty member in social work at Louisiana State University and at the University of Maryland. He has taught graduate courses related to outcome-informed practice since 1985, as well as M.S.W. and Ph.D. level courses on research methodology and statistics. Dr. Orme's interests include outcome-informed practice, measurement development, applied statistical and methodological issues, and foster care. He has published numerous articles in refereed social work and interdisciplinary journals on these topics, and he is a co-author of five editions of Evaluating Practice: Guidelines for the Accountable Professional. His most recent book, co-authored with Terri Combs Orme, is Multiple Regression with Discrete Dependent Variables.

Terri Combs-Orme is a Professor in the College of Social Work, University of Tennessee. She earned her MSSW at the University of Texas at Arlington and her PhD at Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining the University of Tennessee faculty she taught at Louisiana State University, the University of Maryland, and The Johns Hopkins University. She teaches courses in lifespan development and writing critical literature reviews at the BSW, MSSW, and PhD levels. Dr. Combs-Orme’s interests include infant brain development and parenting, and she is a Visiting Fellow at The Urban Child Institute in Memphis, TN. She has published numerous articles in social work, public health, and medical journals. Her most recent book, co-authored with John Orme, is Multiple Regression with Discrete Dependent Variables.