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History of Social Work Research in Mental Health
Social work's interface with mental health promotion and the treatment of mental illness dates to the earliest roots of our profession. From the asylum to the development of community based services, social workers counseled clients and supported families, undertook efforts to prevent mental illness and alleviate its consequences, developed programs, and advocated for public policy and funding to assure that mental illness is treated in parity with physical illness.
Working with other professions involved in this arena, social workers have been involved in the emergence of theories of etiology and interventions, which have been tried, modified, and refined through practice, and through research on that practice. Social workers have traditionally maintained a bio-psychosocial focus — that is, concern for the interaction of the individual and the social environment.
While many social workers provide services in private practice settings, the majority of services are offered in community-based agencies, both public and private, and in hospitals and prisons. Social workers are the largest provider of mental health services, providing more services than all other mental health care providers combined.
In 1988, Lewis L. Judd, MD, then director of the National Institute of Mental Health, appointed a Task Force on Social Work Research, comprised of leaders in the profession, to examine the current status of research and research training throughout the profession of social work. The Report of this Task Force, Building Social Work Knowledge for Effective Services and Policies: A Plan for Research Development, provides not only an assessment of research status at the time, but also recommendations for building research capacity within the profession.
The report noted, "There is a crisis in the current development of research resources in social work. The contributions of practice-relevant research to the knowledge base of social work practice lag far behind the dynamic growth of the profession and professional education" (p. viii), and "there is too little published research that deals with critical professional practice issues" (p, ix). Building Social Work Knowledge for Effective Services and Policies: A Plan for Research Development was grounded in numerous studies and surveys, noted in Appendix B. The report was seminal in the development of IASWR to be the profession's jointly supported organization; IASWR 's mission is framed by the report.
In the ensuing decade NIMH funded seven mental health research centers in schools of social work, with the goal of increasing research and training social work researchers; the Institute also funded a range of technical support efforts. All of this resulted in a significant increase in the number of NIMH-funded social work researchers, expanding social work's contribution to mental health research.
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