Planning is "the process of specifying future objectives, evaluating the means for achieving them, and making deliberate choices about appropriate courses of action. This process of choice involves two aspects: (1) rational decision making, which seeks to examine all relevant alternatives and select from among them, and (2) incremental decision making, which encompasses a more limited range of alternatives and practical considerations."
Source: Robert L. Barker. (2014). The Social Work Dictionary, 6th Edition. NASW Press.
Contracting is "the therapeutic procedure of discussing with the client the goals, methods, and mutual obligations of treatment to obtain a clear verbal understanding or to establish a formal agreement about them."
A contract is "a written, oral, or implied agreement between the client and the social worker as to the goals, methods, timetables, and mutual obligations to be fulfilled during the intervention process."
A contract model is "an orientation in social work practice in which the social worker and client identify goals at the beginning of the relationship and formally establish a working agreement about how to reach them. The agreement includes a specification of terms, the timetables, and other procedures. The contract may be written or oral, and unlike a legal contract, may easily be renegotiated during the course of the intervention process."
Source: Robert L. Barker. (2014). The Social Work Dictionary, 6th Edition. NASW Press.
Some organizations are advocating for writing explicit equity and inclusion goals. For example, SMART(IE) goals, which adds I for Inclusion and E for Equity to the SMART goals.
Tip: Selecting the last term will search all three headings. Selecting the first, will search only the first term (problem).
Examples:
Definitions of Evidence Based Practices are on the Find Evidence-Base Practices page
"In social work, the term is analogous to the physician’s term “treatment.” Many social workers prefer using “intervention” because it includes “treatment” and other activities to solve or prevent problems or achieve goals. Thus, it refers to psychotherapy, advocacy, mediation, social planning, community organization, finding and developing resources, and many other activities.
Source: Robert L. Barker. (2014). The Social Work Dictionary, 6th Edition. NASW Press.
"A very general definition of “intervention” would be any interference that would modify a process or situation. A widely used definition of social intervention was suggested by Seidman (1983) as actions that change intra-societal relationships, planned or unplanned, intended or unintended. In social work, the purpose of intervention is to induce change in order to block or eradicate risk factors, activate and mobilize protective factors, reduce or eradicate harm, or introduce betterment beyond harm eradication. Intervention research occupies a very specific place in the social work profession; we may say that social work is social intervention by its very nature. Intervention research refers to the scientific study of interventions for social and health problems."
Source: Soydan, H. (2014) Intervention Research. In Encyclopedia of Social Work. Oxford University Press
"Brief therapy (BT) “refers to a family of therapeutic interventions in which the practitioner deliberately limits both the goals and the duration of the contact.”
Source: Greene, G. The Brief Therapies. Encyclopedia of Social Work. Oxford University Press.
Some Evidence-Based Family Interventions:
These interventions are identified in Family Assessment Handbook