China Social Science Review

No.2, 2023

Selection of Social Work Intervention Strategies under the Constraints of a Randomized Controlled Trial: An Example of a Project to Enhance the Development of Positive Behaviour in Children

(Abstract)

Wu Fan and Yan Hao

Randomized controlled trial is widely regarded as the golden rule of social work interventions. However, due to constraints in terms of the number of intervention participants, implementation norms, quality assessment tools and the ethical requirements of social work, it is often difficult to achieve a rigorous randomized controlled trial of social work interventions in real-life contexts. An analysis of the implementation of the “Let’s Be Friends-Hebei” intervention for children’s positive behavioural development shows that, non-randomized intervention sub-optimal strategies can be selected in different stages of intervention design, implementation and evaluation, and these sub-optimal strategies also show relatively significant intervention effects. In addition, in the field of social work services, statistical significance and clinical significance should be the core criteria for measuring the effectiveness of interventions.