ABSTRACT
How does evidence-based social work happen? This chapter further develops the diffusion analysis of Chapter 4. It provides some detailed observations on evidencebased social work in the UK through the lens of actor network theory. We use the UK case example to describe how diffusion occurs within a specific context by focusing on authorities of delimitation. These authorities comprise the social work research and policy and professional community, i.e., a network of institutions which possess their own rules. As a group of agencies and individuals, they constitute the social work profession – a sphere of activity with its own body of knowledge and standards of practice. These authorities are recognized by pub lic opinion, the law, and government, and have become the major vehicle that named, designated, mobilized and formalized evidence as an object. We focus on organizations like the Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE), the Campbell Collaboration (C2) and the Centre for Evidence-Based Social Services (CEBSS) to undertake the actor network analysis of evidence-based networks in UK social work.
