The Six Warrants of Professional Decision-Making

Summary of the Workshop: The purpose of this workshop is to introduce the Six Warrants Model for Professional Decision-Making, and to provide experience to participants in applying the model to practice cases. The model has... [ view full abstract ]

Summary of the Workshop:
The purpose of this workshop is to introduce the Six Warrants Model for Professional Decision-Making, and to provide experience to participants in applying the model to practice cases. The model has been developed to reconcile a contradiction within “evidence-based practice,” namely, that the type of evidence to establish cause and effect relations for treatment approaches (“evidence-supported practice”), even when incorporated by practitioners (“evidence-informed practice”) is not sufficient for the decision-making required when providing individualized client-centered services. A better understanding of the complexities of how both forms of evidence are used in everyday practice, along with other “warrants,” may lead to a more balanced implementation of research evidence

The six warrants (research evidence, practitioner expertise, client preferences/priorities, available facility resources, theoretical understanding, and “internal evidence,” that is, the information gleaned from client and family as to occupational performance, life narrative and trajectory, and from client response to intervention), as justifications for decision-making in practice, co-exist, with none presumed to have primacy before the analysis of each client situation.

Workshop objectives are (a) thorough discussion of the six warrants, and (b) application of the model to specific cases from various practice settings. Workshop format will be an alternation between whole group presentation/discussion, and small group, intensive conversation about the cases.