Growing research in
practice: messages for
social work education
Liz Beddoe & Phil Harington , University of Auckland, New
Zealand
Practical Learning Conference Edinburgh 2008
Growing research in practice
The GRIP Team: Liz Beddoe, Christa
Fouché, Phil Harington, Glenda Light, Neil
Lunt and Deborah Yates
Practice based research
Fox et al claim increasing number of prof.
practitioners have research within their
professional remit, as both practice and
research benefit from practitioner research
and academic research is enhanced by links
with practice (Fox, Martin & Green,2007,pp.1-3
Why practitioner research?
Dirkx describes the ‘insider’ view versus the
‘outsider perspective reflected in evidence
based research’ .
Insider research is able to use traditional
research methods to examine what works, but
from a perspective which ‘takes into account
the epistemological, moral and political
complexities of practice’ (Dirkx 2006,p.276).
Social workers’ research activity





Preparatory education for social work routinely
includes content on research
Time erodes social worker confidence (continuum
exercise)
Especially social worker confidence re selection/
design methodology
Lack of support from employers, lack of
identification within peer group of research as a
job component
Lack of tradition sharing knowledge in a
community of practice / research, conferences
“it’s all about casework” …

Concentration on the prime tasks of the frontline

Workload measured in casework outputs

Practice lacks attention to building an empirical basis for
decision making

No search for patterns (quant) no search for meanings (qual)

As a consequence no body of research on practice outcomes


No sense that data from practice informs management nor
peers,
Critically- neither is much information collected from service
users
What’s lost?
• Loss of capacity to be appreciated for their
scholarship potential
• Social work reduced to asinine and anecdotal
evidence to support practice
• Audiences for social work argument may hear
a plea not a knowledge claim
• Cultural capital eroded by lack of use of the
intellectual tradition and gravitas that was laid
down in university preparation
Social work suffers a loss of
professional capital
• Lack of research mindedness and impact on
practice
• Lack of confidence in interprofessional
environments
• It is considered that this situation impacts on
the status and credibility of social work as a
profession.
AIMS of the programme
• The overarching goal of the GRIP programme was to
assist the development of a culture of practitioner
enquiry in social service agencies in Auckland aimed at
facilitating meaningful change and service
improvement. It is a collaborative programme bringing
together practitioners, academics, agencies and funding
bodies.
• The objective of the GRIP team’s own enquiry is to
develop an understanding of ‘what works’ in facilitating
the uptake of research and results amongst social work
practitioners within organisations and in practice
settings.
Key features …
•
An introductory seminar
•
Expressions of interest- selection criteria
•
Nine projects selected
•
The workshop series
•
Mentoring
•
Symposium
•
Collection of papers
•
Collection of resources
•
The Knowledge Map
Selection criteria
• a project from, within and for practice
• a small keen group of practitioners, staff or
consumers
• a small-scale feasible topic
• a client or service-delivery focus
• sufficient support from within the agency
• the potential for GRIP to add value
Dimensions of GRIP
Research
Projects
Small groups of
practitioners
enquiring into
their own
practice issues
Knowledge Map
Grip Team
Mentoring
Workshops
Resources
Data collection
Funders
Research into
practitioner
research
activity
Values
• Sound practitioner research is congruent with
social work values (Powell, 2005). Basic social
work principles informed the projects:
• transparency
• reciprocity
• social sensitivity
• empowerment and social change
• multiple accountability
• Treaty partnership & cultural sensitivity
Cultural dimensions
• Within each practice project, full space has been afforded for
appropriate cultural methodologies and ways of working.
• E.g. a demonstration model undertaken with an iwi (Maori)
agency or Pacific service provider would require the
development of culturally appropriate approaches and
resources would need to be sought to provide guidance and
support.
• The projects are controlled, negotiated and staffed by those
with appropriate cultural knowledge and service expertise.
• Throughout this period we have sought to include experts with
knowledge of kaupapa Maori methodologies, Pacific ways of
working such as Fa'asamoa, cross-cultural working and work
with vulnerable groups.
Facilitating family meetings :
1. Auckland City
Hospital- Seven
practitioners
2. Desire to
document multiple
cultural
perspectives
3. And define Best
Practice: Family
meetings
A Pasifika project: aims
1. A project to document
effective existing social
practices used by
Pasifika practitioners at
Waipareira Pasifika.
2. Secondly, the aim was
to conceptualise how
these practices are
defined by these
Kote loto gatasi kote galiga o fenua
practitioners.
‘The unity of heart is the beauty of
the islands.’
The programme: 6 seminars &
symposium
1.
•
2.
•
•
4.
•
5.
6.
7.
Getting Started:
the Research Question/the literature/ ethics and methodology
Designing Methodologies:
Interviews/ focus groups/Surveys /old and new data/ journals &
memos 3. Data Collection and Analysis of Diverse Perspectives
Responding to difference/Pasifika research guidelines
Analysing and Organising Data
Quantitative methods/Qualitative methods
Writing and Presenting Findings
Celebrating a Gripping Year and
The symposium
Mentoring
•
The mentors are the GRIP research team members and a Maori
cultural advisor.
•
Mentors have met regularly with the teams in the workplace
and e-mail has been used to communicate ideas and drafts
throughout.
•
Mentoring is provided on a pro bono basis.
•
The role is supportive, rather than supervisory, and responsive
to the queries or concerns raised by the practitioners.
•
Mentors have encouraged the teams to create a timeline for
their project, assign tasks within and set goals for small
components to be completed.
Key questions for our research
To what extent is a research culture facilitated within the
organisation;
Are there changes to practice and service delivery?
What other direct/indirect differences does a practice
project make?
What worked and what could be done better?
Data Collection
• at each workshop project participants were asked to complete
questionnaires to provide a record of their experiences over
time.
• Interviews with team leaders and project teams were
conducted during the latter part of 2006 and early 2007 to
provide further data.
• GRIP team members recorded their reflections on the
mentoring sessions, notes made during workshops research
memos to note insights and questions, GRIP team discussions
recorded and transcribed to add to the rich set of data.
• A further set of data is being collected over October 07February 08
Early analysis of this data indicates
• Considerable enthusiasm for practice research, despite the
challenges of time pressure, knowledge and resources
• Lack of confidence (Joubert,2006)
• Social workers ‘forget’ their research knowledge
• Supports the usefulness of a collaborative approach in building
research capacity and confidence in social work
• Group relationships and process are very important
• This requires culture change at various levels in social work in
New Zealand as elsewhere –particularly managers &
professional leaders
• It also requires resources and support from mangers and
supervisors –real organisational commitment (Fox, 2007 )
Potential from collaborative process
• Growing confidence
• Sowing seeds for practitioner research
• Supporting community groups for improved
funding
• Improved relationships between academia and
practice
Outcomes
• ‘We have been running [the Chinese mental health
support] for four years and we’ve seen outcome is very
positive but we really don’t know which part is working
best is question in my mind for a long time. I want
some answers for that and Chinese community is very,
is increasing all the time in New Zealand and more
people will be suffering and need professional help.
we need to improve, we need more money to do that. We
need to apply for funding so we also need the evidence
to go to the funders to say that this is a good
programme, we have the research because that is the
one thing that I learn. They said in New Zealand you
have to give research evidence’ Chinese mental health
group.
Social work research
• ‘I think somehow or other we’ve got to be
able to implement research in the same way
that medical teams here at the hospital
implement research, it just becomes part of
your practice as something that’s taken for
granted and it’s something where you’re
given time to do as well and funding. Until
we show our practice and our evidence based
approaches in terms of other professions
we’re not going to be able to stand up’ Health
group .
De-mythologize research production
• That the genre of research is always academic and
remote from practice
• That it has to be quantitative to count !
• That it has to be qualitative to have meaning!
• It has to contest big ideas
• That it has to construct major knowledge
• That it has to be talked about in esoteric language not
the vernacular of practice
• That practitioners can’t manage ethical adjudication of
proposals
De-mythologize research dissemination
• Research doesn’t have to be published in
academic journals to be significant to practice
• That it can’t be presented simply and
accessibly to peers and still have value and
invite further exploration
• That we can’t have a seminar programme in
work time- that research happens somewhere
else
Messages for pre-service education:
• Strength of research methods training and production
of research reports needs to be grounded in practice
issues
• Nature of relationships with the field around student
research projects
• Transfer of learning
• Methodologies have to be accessible & immediate so
that students will re-use them upon graduation
• Create an appetite for graduates to read, write and
utilise research and empirical practice
Messages for practitioner communities
•
•
•
•
-
Respect inquiry and expect analysis
Time , Time , Time
Find resources and support
Reward those who respond to the challenge
awards
Bonuses
Research counting for salary and promotion
Conference leave
Writing time
Sabbaticals and fellowships with other stakeholders
Exchanges /secondments
Time and support
‘Project members’ workload has not in any way been
reduced. They’re not supported organisationally to
attend or participate so what they have to have do is
steal time away from the clinical load and having
processes in place that allow them to come like being
able to give their locator to a team member, it’s not at
all unusual for locators to go off during GRIP meetings,
people having to leave or people just not turning up at
all ,because the work overwhelms them’ Health SW
project leader .
‘We’re told do an ethics application. No then somebody says
actually for your project you don’t need to do one, so write
to the Ethics Committee about what you’re doing just to
kind of get a tick, so we wrote to them and they said you
will do an ethics application.
So then our response was oh well let’s do what the Ethics
Committee tells us and then when it’s well under way the
person at the research office talks directly to the
chairperson of the Ethics Committee who says do you
really understand what it is that they’re doing because it’s
a very low risk piece of work. It’s only accessing staff.
But that’s interesting in itself, the whole sort of power of the
experts telling us and under the guise for quality project it
probably doesn’t need an ethics application so we’ve kind
of got a bit tangled up in that’.
Last words
‘I’m already doing another project with a team of people,
an evaluation of the after hours service, there are two
projects now, there’s going to be another one next year,
so yeah definitely increased confidence and interest
around doing it some more’.
‘We want all practitioners to start thinking about their
experiences and putting that into projects and from the
GRIP seminar there was something that was said ,that
you don’t have to call it research, you can just
contribute, you can have conversation, you can just
communicate and that can be your role in it. So it
would be really good to see all practitioners starting to
think of evidence based practice’.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge the sponsors of the GRIP
programme: the Families Commission's Innovative Practice
Fund, the Ministry of Social Development's SPEaR Linkages
fund and the ASB Trusts in partnership with the ANZASW. The
University Of Auckland Faculty Of Education Research Fund
and The University of Auckland Staff Research Fund have also
provided generous support of the programme to date. We would
also like to acknowledge the support provided by Thomson
Publishing who provided text resources for each practice team
and last, but not least, the participants to this initiative who
made the whole GRIP experience possible
Thank you for your interest
Liz Beddoe, University of Auckland, New Zealand
PEPE Edinburgh January 2008