Policy Press
7 Dissemination and utilisation
Abstract
Would you expect your doctor to keep up with developments in their profession? How about your pharmacist, dentist or physiotherapist? And is this important for your personal trainer, hairdresser or plumber? Clients receiving a service may expect to be dealing with a well-informed social work practitioner. This may include: new interventions for mental well-being among older adults or for managing problem gambling; effective assessments for intimate-partner violence or cyber bullying; innovations in child protection or for preventing human trafficking. The question is: can you confidently say that you are keeping up with developments in your field? A full response to this question has two parts. On the one hand, social workers are encouraged to be research minded and consider their professional and ethical obligation to be consumers of research; generators of research questions; and collaborators in the design or implementation phases of research as active practitioner-researchers conducting relatively small-scale projects in the workplace or as contributors to research-related activities. Mostly, as we have seen in previous chapters, this has to be balanced with front-line demands and often comes a fair way down the list of priorities. On the other hand, though, researchers need to be practice minded so as to ensure that the findings of research have practice relevance and can be easily accessed by practitioners. This is not to suggest that practitioners are reluctant to fulfil their evidence-informed and research-minded obligations. Doing this just has to be possible within the demands of practice. If this is not the case, the blame cannot solely be placed on the social work practitioner.
Abstract
Would you expect your doctor to keep up with developments in their profession? How about your pharmacist, dentist or physiotherapist? And is this important for your personal trainer, hairdresser or plumber? Clients receiving a service may expect to be dealing with a well-informed social work practitioner. This may include: new interventions for mental well-being among older adults or for managing problem gambling; effective assessments for intimate-partner violence or cyber bullying; innovations in child protection or for preventing human trafficking. The question is: can you confidently say that you are keeping up with developments in your field? A full response to this question has two parts. On the one hand, social workers are encouraged to be research minded and consider their professional and ethical obligation to be consumers of research; generators of research questions; and collaborators in the design or implementation phases of research as active practitioner-researchers conducting relatively small-scale projects in the workplace or as contributors to research-related activities. Mostly, as we have seen in previous chapters, this has to be balanced with front-line demands and often comes a fair way down the list of priorities. On the other hand, though, researchers need to be practice minded so as to ensure that the findings of research have practice relevance and can be easily accessed by practitioners. This is not to suggest that practitioners are reluctant to fulfil their evidence-informed and research-minded obligations. Doing this just has to be possible within the demands of practice. If this is not the case, the blame cannot solely be placed on the social work practitioner.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures and tables vi
- List of examples vii
- List of reflection exercises viii
- Glossary ix
- Introduction xii
-
The relationship between practice and research
- The nature of practice research in social work 3
- The context of practice research 19
- Practice research relationships 39
-
Designing practice research
- Framing the project 61
- Designing applied research 85
- Data collection and analysis in practice research 109
-
Nurturing networks
- Dissemination and utilisation 139
- Research mentoring relationships 163
- The full cycle 177
- References 185
- Index 201
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures and tables vi
- List of examples vii
- List of reflection exercises viii
- Glossary ix
- Introduction xii
-
The relationship between practice and research
- The nature of practice research in social work 3
- The context of practice research 19
- Practice research relationships 39
-
Designing practice research
- Framing the project 61
- Designing applied research 85
- Data collection and analysis in practice research 109
-
Nurturing networks
- Dissemination and utilisation 139
- Research mentoring relationships 163
- The full cycle 177
- References 185
- Index 201
