Despite the attempts to try and include service users, social work research is always going to be a top-down exercise, i.e. not conducted by the poorer members of society or the most vulnerable. This begs the question of whether using an evidence-based approach can exacerbate the part of social work which says "we know what's best for you". When we, as professionals, know what is most likely to work to help a service user with their situation, it can be tempting to think we have the answers.
Remembering that there is definitely not one definitive answer, and we are always working with probabilities, is one way of ensuring that we address the power imbalance. More importantly, we need to keep in mind that although interested in "what works", we are more interested in "what matters" to that particular individual (Newman et al, 2005).
This social work malarkey's all quite simple when you've got a reductive way of thinking, I think.
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