Since 2010 a large-scale project on implementing Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) in the social services has been governed by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in partnership with The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR). The overall idea of the partnership is to support implementation of EBP in the social services (i.e. elderly care, support and care of the disabled and, child, family and individual social support) via regional supportive structures for local knowledge development. The evidence based model is used as the guiding idea of this national initiative initially adapted and translated from the ideas of evidence based medicine and built upon the triangular model of knowledge sources; A. best available knowledge from research or best practice B. the individual service users’ needs and aims and C. the actual individual situation and contextual factors. All together these three sources should make up the professional knowledge base used by the social service worker. 

Implementing the general idea of EBP according to the triangular model of knowledge sources is in this paper seen as chains of translations (Czarniawska and Sevón, 1996; Sahlin and Wedlin, 2008) but also as technologies of government (Miller and Rose, 2008). What happens when the EBP-model meets the reality and context of every-day life of the social worker? Which challenges for developing more knowledge based ways of working are experienced in the local social service organizations? 

The empirical material is based on focus group interviews with social care managers in the county of Västmanland in Sweden in late 2014 on main challenges in implementing knowledge based ways of working in social services. Findings indicate the pre-understanding of EBP being scaring, complicated and scarcely accessible for real work situations, especially in the care of elderly or disabled persons.