Intervention Design and Development: A Case Study

Abstract

Approaches for systematically constructing, evaluating, improving, and disseminating human service interventions offer the potential for enhancing the effectiveness of social work practice. However, there has been little study of how such approaches actually work when carried out. This article presents a comprehensive case study of how one of them—the design and development (D&D) paradigm of Edwin J. Thomas and Jack Rothman—was applied in the development of a case management intervention for problems of school failure. The application reveals the strengths of the paradigm as well as areas in which further work is needed. For example, greater attention needs to be given to (a) the possible impact of financial, political, ethical, and other contextual factors on the development process; (b) procedures for advanced development in the absence of experimental evaluations; and (c) criteria for marketing an intervention whose effectiveness has not been fully demonstrated.