Context and Resources Eat Evidence for Breakfast: Lessons on the Use of Evidence from the Intervention Me and My Foster Family

Purpose: On the backdrop of a long-lasting debate on ‘evidence’ in social work, this article contributes lessons from an attempt to make evidence inform practice. Our aim is to enrich discussions about the ways in which evidence informs current social work practice.
Method: We use data from a feasibility study of the intervention Me and My Foster Family (MOMP) in eight Danish municipalities, from 2018 to 2023. We juxtapose the perceived engagement with research evidence by municipal social workers and management against a model of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP).
Findings: Resource constraints and structural obstacles to offering a catalogue of empirically supported interventions (ESIs) wide enough to meet the manifold needs of foster carers and children, and a severe shortage of interventions with strong evidence in a Danish context impede the use of evidence on higher levels of the knowledge hierarchy. Given these conditions, acceptance of ESIs among foster carers and social workers is high when it aligns with their preferences.
Discussion: While on the one hand these findings illuminate potentials for the acceptance and value of EBP to social work, at the same time they point to daunting challenges generating and disseminating ‘the best available evidence’.