Insuring the Integrity and Validity of Social Work Interventions: The Case of the Subsidized Guardianship Waiver Experiments

Abstract

The near loss of the ability to conduct randomized controlled trials in the Title IV-E waiver demonstrations makes the negotiation of a ceasefire urgent in the “causal wars.” Results-oriented accountability is a conceptual framework for managing the micro–macro tensions that arise in social work practice and research. This article uses subsidized guardianship experiments to illustrate the results-oriented accountability process by which innovation is aggregated from the micro level through formative implementation and evaluation into a usable, stable intervention that can be rigorously tested through summative implementation and evaluation at the macro level, and if validated, generalized to the micro level through translative implementation and evaluation.

Keywords:

• Randomized controlled trials
• results-oriented accountability
• Title IV-E waivers