Families in society | Volume 91, No. 3 300 Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services | www.FamiliesInSociety.org | DOI: 10.1606/1044-3894.4009 ©2010 Alliance for Children and Families 300 CLINICAL PRACTICE ISSUES Is Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Evidence-Based? Johnny S. Kim, Sara Smock, Terry S. Trepper, Eric E. McCollum, & Cynthia Franklin This article describes the process of having solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) be evaluated by various federal reg- istries as an evidence-based practice (EBP) intervention. The authors submitted SFBT for evaluation for inclusion on three national EBP registry lists in the United States: the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Results of our submission found SFBT was not reviewed by SAMHSA and WWC because it was not prioritized highly enough for review, but it was rated as “promising” by OJJDP. Implications for practitioners and recommendations regarding the status of SFBT as an EBP model are discussed. ABSTRACT Implications for Practice • A team efort of researchers and social work practitioners is necessary to facilitate SFBT’s recognition as an EBP with state and federal agencies. • As states begin to set their own guidelines and criteria for EBP, social workers will fnd the need to consult EBP-registered lists be- fore administering treatments to specifc populations and disorders. S olution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) is a strengths-based inter- vention that was developed in the 1980s by Steve de Shazer (1985, 1988), Insoo Kim Berg (1994), and colleagues (Berg & De Jong, 1996; Berg & Miller, 1992; Cade & O’Hanlon, 1993; Lipchik, 2002; Murphy, 1996) from the Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Past research studies on SFBT have shown that it has promise as an effective intervention. Research on this model is still growing, with recent studies utilizing more rigorous research designs. Although SFBT has become a popular therapeutic model for social workers and practitioners from all disciplines, current policy demands are pressuring social workers to demonstrate effective services and to choose therapy interventions that have research support (Gorey, 1996; Herie & Martin, 2002). Managed health care organizations have pressed for evidence-based treatment approaches, for example, and it is unlikely the mandate for research-supported practice will disappear any time soon (Herie & Martin, 2002). More recently state funding agencies have required that therapy interventions show evidence or be recognized and approved by federal agencies as evidenced-based interventions (e.g., the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA] and the National Institute on Drug Abuse) or otherwise justify with research studies the efectiveness of the approaches being used in community- based agencies. Some states have also moved to develop their own lists of approved, evidence-based practices (EBP). While this trend is a fairly new one and varies across states and local jurisdictions, it raises the bar for practice interventions and asks agencies and practitioners to meet certain research standards when applying community-based interventions. Currently, SFBT is widely applied in the community but ofen omitted from the current federal and state lists of EBP because SFBT has not been recognized by those agencies as having enough empirical support. However, research on emerging practice approaches, like SFBT, is ongoing and promising, and efcacious interventions are being identifed. As is common, the practice knowledge and developments ofen lag behind the research knowledge and developments, hampering updates entering the feld in a timely fashion. Tis also appears to be the case with therapy research and lists of approved evidence-based community practices. Recently, Kim (2008) conducted a meta-analysis on SFBT and found small but positive results, especially for internalizing behavior problems like depression, anxiety, and self-concept. Tese results were comparable to other meta-analyses on psychotherapy and social work practices (Gorey, 1996; Weisz, McCarty, & Valeri, 2006). In another meta-analysis, Stams, Dekovic, Buist, and de Vries (2006) found small to moderate efects that SFBT was consistently better than no treatment and as good as other treatments. It also found that the best results were for personal behavior change, and that SFBT required fewer sessions than other therapies that had similar results. In yet another recent systematic review of SFBT studies evaluating outcomes with children and adolescents in schools, Kim and Franklin (2009) found that SFBT had several positive outcomes, as was demonstrated by medium and some large efect sizes calculated for the specifc behavioral and academic outcomes that were being measured. Given the recent increase in the number of outcome studies and these meta-analyses studies on SFBT, the authors wanted to know the following: How do researchers provide updates to community-based practitioners in a timely fashion, and how does a therapy model like SFBT, which is gaining in research studies, get to be considered for