| Sumario: | Evidence-based assessment in intimate partner violence (IPV) is critical to the accurate understanding of risk and to the development of interventions that increase safety. In this study standardized clients (actors) were used to train Army civilian social workers in evidence-based assessment of IPV and in the evaluation of the curriculum's effectiveness. Participation in this training curriculum increased the following: the participants' knowledge about the empirical basis for content areas explored in IPV assessment, their exploration of content critical to an IPV assessment interview, and their interviewing process skills. The results support the effectiveness of using standardized clients in IPV assessment training and evaluation. The importance of conducting evidence-based assessments has been widely acknowledged by many professions, including social work (Gibbs & Gambrill, 2002; Thyer, 2004). However, little is known about effective ways to train and evaluate professionals in the practice of evidence- based assessment. In this study standardized clients (SCs) were used to train Army social workers in evidence-based IPV assessment and also as part of the evaluation of the curriculum's effectiveness.
|
|---|