1 Journal of Social Work Education, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Spring/Summer). Copyright © 2009, Council on Social Work Education, Inc. All rights reserved. LIMITATIONS OF EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE FOR SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION: UNPACKING THE COMPLEXITY EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE (EBP) is a term that is now widely used in social work and psycho- social disciplines. Modeled after evidence-based medicine, a state-of-the-art approach where the focus is on finding appropriate treatments (pharmaceutical, medical, and surgical) for a patient’s medical conditions (Eddy, 2005; Sackett, Rosenberg, Gray, Haynes, & Richard- son, 1996; Sackett, Straus, Richardson, Rosen- berg, & Haynes, 2000), EBP within psychoso- cial disciplines focuses on using intervention approaches with demonstrated effectiveness for a client’s particular presenting problem or condition in collaboration with the client (Gambrill, 1999; 2001). In social work, propo- nents of EBP link this approach to social work values, noting the ethical imperative to offer clients treatments that are known to work and to use the best evidence available (McNeece & Thyer, 2004). Reviews of EBPs have been pub- lished in such diverse social work areas as the substance abuse field (O’Hare, 2002); direct practice in aging (Cummings, Kropf, Cassie, & Bride, 2004); and school-based interventions Kathryn Betts Adams Case Western Reserve University Holly C. Matto Virginia Commonwealth University Craig Winston LeCroy Arizona State University Although some academic scholars have called for adoption of evidence-based practice (EBP) as a unifying model for social work education and practice, con- troversies with the EBP approach for the social work profession still need to be examined. Some of the limitations of EBP to be recognized and addressed be- fore recommending broad changes within social work education are described. Conceptual and definitional limitations include following a medical model, privileging certain types of evidence, and downplaying the importance of the- ory. Implementation and feasibility limitations include sorting the complexity of research information and providing necessary practice grounding and super- vision to facilitate knowledge application. Dialogue on the role of EBP in social work education must continue. JS9SS-Adams-2:JournalFall2006 Mon/March/30/2009 Mon/Mar/30/2009/ 10:35 AM Page 1