Jargon buster - Evidence-based practice

What does it mean? Evidence-based practice is the opposite of intuition, of "that's just the way we do it" or "in my experience I find this works" approaches. In medicine, nursing and psychology, evidence-based research and practice are the bedrock of modern professional practice.

Evidence-based practice is gaining popularity in many other professions and sectors - social services, policing and health, for example - which are adopting evidence-based approaches because it is more cost-effective to use something that is proven to work.

The National Academy for Parenting Practitioners also strongly believes that all forms of support for families should be based on hard evidence of success. The academy was created by the government in 2007 to train and support practitioners working with parents. In January this year, it launched the Commissioning Toolkit, a guide for children's trust commissioners to help them make informed choices about how suitable a particular programme may be in meeting the needs of specific parents.