Implementering av Funktionell Familjeterapi: en kvalitativ studie av implementeringen av en evidensbaserad behandlingsmetod inom socialtjänsten på en ort i södra Sverige

Sammanfattning: The ambition to use evidence based treatments has spread within the field of Swedish social work. The number of treatments with claim to being evidence based has grown but the research concerning implementation; the procedures being used to introduce new methods in organizations and assure that the method is being used appropriately and continuously, is scarce. The aim of this study was to examine the implementation of Functional Family Therapy (FFT), being an evidence based treatment, in an organization providing social services in the public sector, in Sweden. We used a qualitative research design and conducted interviews with persons involved in the implementation of FFT in the social services in a town in the south of Sweden. We used the practice guidelines provided in Evidence Based Practice (EBP) together with recently published meta- analyses of implementation research, in the field of social work, to examine the implementation of FFT, as being an evidence based treatment. We found the studied implementation process differentiating from the main bulk of published implementation research, in best being characterized as bottom up as compared to top down. The conditions described to us as being needed for this kind of implementation seemed to correlate with what we saw as the conditions needed to create an evidence based practice in social work in the Swedish public sector. We found the absence of evaluation to be a crucial deficiency in fulfilling the requirements of FFT, as an evidence based treatment.