Abstract
This paper offers some rules of thumb that practicing social workers can use for case studies that aim to construct, albeit not fully and never entirely reliably, models designed to help predict what will happen if they intervene in specific ways to help this particular client, here and now. We call these ’ex ante case-specific causal models’. ’Ex ante’ because they are for before-the-fact prediction of what the likely effects of proposed actions are. ’Case-specific’ because we are not concerned with studies that provide evidence for some general conclusion but rather with using what general and local knowledge one can get to predict what will happen to a specific client in the real settings in which they live. ’Causal’ because this kind of case study aims to trace out as best possible the web of causal processes that will be responsible for what happens. In this sense our case studies resemble post facto realist evaluations.
Highlights
This paper offers some rules of thumb that practicing social workers can use for case studies that aim to construct, albeit not fully and never entirely reliably, models designed to help predict what will happen if you intervene in specific ways to help this particular client, here and and what will happen if you don’t
“Ex ante” because they are for before-the-fact prediction of what the effects of proposed actions are likely to be, by contrast with “post facto” evaluation that tries to determine what was responsible for the effects that occurred or whether a particular action produced the outcomes intended, which are the meat of after-the-fact evaluation that aims to find out what went right, what went wrong, and why
“Case-specific” because we are not concerned with studies that provide evidence for some general conclusion but rather with using what general and local knowledge one can get to predict what will happen to a specific client in the real settings in which they live
Summary
This paper offers some rules of thumb that practicing social workers can use for case studies that aim to construct, albeit not fully and never entirely reliably, models designed to help predict what will happen if you intervene in specific ways to help this particular client, here and and what will happen if you don’t. We call these “ex ante case-specific causal models”. As you will see, just as with Pawson (2014), we caution against codifying what you should do since situations vary so widely
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