How the “What Works” Movement is Failing Human Service Organizations, and What Social Work Can Do to Fix It

The social work profession has a long history of seeking legitimacy by adopting frameworks and methods from higher status professions. This quest has led to concerns about social work’s strengths potentially being sacrificed for broader professional approval. In this commentary we explore a contemporary iteration of this phenomenon—social work’s participation in the “What Works” movement, which promotes greater use of evidence-based practice (EBP) and policy—and discuss the impact of increasingly linking government funding for human service organizations (HSOs) to the use of EBPs. At risk are three foundations of social work practice: valuing community-based knowledge; preserving staff autonomy and a pipeline for social work trained managers; and making program decisions with a thorough understanding of organizational and community context. We argue that an organizational learning perspective may help HSOs maintain social work values while also drawing on evidence to improve the lives of consumers and their communities.