Research and Evaluation Services Article Archives
On The Use of Research in
Social Work Practice
Published in Caring, Vol. XV, no.2, (Summer 1999), p. 22
By Tom Lengyel
director of research and evaluation services
As a social work supervisor for a county social services department in the early 90’s, I participated in making decisions as to the placement of children who had been removed from their homes. One of the questions I confronted was whether to place children in foster care with homosexual couples as foster parents. The issue for me was how the orientation of the parents might influence the growth and development of the child. For example, would children placed in such an environment develop reasonable expectations about male and female roles, and would they develop conventional sexual identities.
For guidance and, hopefully, answers I turned to the literature which social work research had produced about the subject. There I found relatively unambiguous answers to my questions - kids turn out the same regardless of the sexual orientation of their parents. However, had the answers been ambiguous - for example, if studies had produced conflicting findings - even this would have offered guidance (i.e., a cautionary sign). The existence and availability of even-tempered studies of this controversial issue helped me to resolve an important dilemma of practice. In my opinion, social work and the outcomes it seeks to produce cannot advance without this kind of unfettered interplay between research and values.