Bridging the gap: A collaborative model for forensic social work dissemination and translation

Forensic social workers play an integral role in upholding human rights and social justice in criminal and juvenile legal settings, including in policing, courts, corrections, forensic mental health, and treatment facilities. These practitioners have organizational and ethical responsibilities to provide research-based and empirically informed interventions. However, research has shown a disconnect between research and practice in social work, including in the forensic social work arena. This article explores dissemination and translation strategies as mechanisms to bridge the research-practice gap. Forensic social workers should support the development of knowledge through scientific research, but they should also be equipped to disseminate and translate research that will address complex needs seen in the criminal legal system and with system-involved communities at micro, meso, and macro levels. The proposed collaborative model positions dissemination and translation as strategies to uphold evidence-informed practice, with important implications for practice, education, and community contexts, including the geographic- and identity-based communities most involved in and affected by criminal and juvenile legal practices. Forensic social work is a complex area of practice that requires unique and specialist knowledge and skills. There are ethical and professional obligations to use evidence-informed practices in this space. Practitioners must understand, critique, disseminate, translate, and otherwise utilize relevant research on criminal-legal practices and populations. This article looks at dissemination and translation strategies as a method for upholding evidence-informed practice. It provides international examples of effective dissemination and translation in criminal-legal and juvenile-legal research across practice levels and settings. This article presents a systemic model of evidence-informed practice, which recognizes the organizational and community structures required to support the effective dissemination and translation of research.