Fostering Collaborative Leadership Through the Implementation of Evidence-Based Practice In A Social Service Agency

This paper reports the applied research qualitative findings from a pilot study conducted in Ventura County, California involving Emergency Response Child Welfare Social Workers (n=14) trained in the NICHD forensic interview protocol utilizing a cohort model with law enforcement officers (n=13). The joint training forced inter-professional interactions to test the theory that increased inter-professional interactions occurring through the course of a specialized skill training foster increased collaborations between the professions following implementation of the evidence-based practice. Data was collected and analyzed using a combination of participant observations, focus groups, individual interviews, and surveys. Prior to the training, social workers were not actively participating in forensic interviews at the county’s Multidisciplinary Interview Center (MDIC) and were specifically excluded by written policy from participating in sexual abuse cases. Social workers were perceived as unable to successfully conduct a forensic interview and law enforcement took a lead role in investigations involving child maltreatment in which there existed a likelihood of criminal prosecution. Data collected one month and three months following training completion and implementation of the evidence-based practice reflect both individual and organizational culture changes that foster increased inter-professional collaboration in the form of MDIC policy and procedure changes encouraging social worker use of the center to conduct forensic interviews, formal recognition of the social workers as qualified to conduct independent investigations, and individual officer deference to social workers from the training cohort exhibited in the form of invitations to take the lead in forensic interviews, including cases involving allegations of sexual abuse.