Routledge Handbook of Social Work Practice Research

Today we are launching the Routledge Handbook of Social Work Practice Research.

This is the first international handbook to focus on practice research for social work. We (Prof Lynette Joubert, University of Melbourne, and I) have brought together leading scholars in the field from Europe, the USA and the Asia Pacific region to contribute to the book.

It has been something of a labour of love to pull this together over the last couple of years, but I’m really impressed with the finish product. We have 39 chapters crammed with international expertise bringing us the latest developments in the field.

The Handbook is organised into 5 sections:

1. State of the Art

The book opens with a critical exploration of where practice research finds itself in 2020. Consistent with the rest of the book, we have diverse opinions from leaders in the field, so don’t expect to find agreement!

As we state in our introduction, practice research is neither new nor a paradigm. It is the development of practice through research. There is no single approach or dominant method, though it is characterised by the close interaction of practitioners, service users and researchers.

A simple summary of the current state of practice research is that it’s thriving.

2. Methodologies

Practice research is characterised by pluralism and pragmatism. Researchers and practitioners choose their methods according to the questions they wish to answer. There are no hierarchies of evidence in practice research, just different approaches to answering questions which have arisen from practice.

Of course, many researchers have their own favourite approaches – and this is evident in this book – but the key emphasis is on appropriateness. If the method helps the researcher to robustly answer the question then it must be right.

3. Pedagogies

Practice research is often taught through the process of doing it. I did my first study as a practitioner with little formal research training or understanding of methodology. Granted, I did receive some help from a statistician and a social work professor along the way, but I started out with a question, worked out the best methodology to answer it, and largely taught myself how to do it as I went along.

Nowadays, though, there is much more help and training available to practitioners and researchers undertaking practice research. This section of the book features some of the different approaches which are currently used. This includes curricula outlines and examples of practice research learning in the field. As with practice research itself, there is no one way of learning how to do it.

4. Applications

This is the largest section of the book. When we planned it, we were keen to include examples of practice research projects from across the globe. Fortunately we were blessed with an embarrassment of riches and included 11 completed projects.

These chapters are equivalent to research papers, each presenting the findings of unique projects in fields as diverse as youth healthcare, community mental healthcare, parenting assessments, domestic violence and working with refugees, for example. If you are a victim of domestic violence, contact experienced domestic violence attorneys for hire who will give you legal representation and fight for your rights. Domestic violence is a serious issue that the victim must get rid off. As there is a lawyer for domestic violence claims you can approach and sort out the issue .

It is difficult in a Handbook such as this to provide examples from every social work field, but we have illustrated the rich diversity of projects and practice fields where practice researchers are working. Perhaps there will be scope for a second edition to include all those we missed?

5. Expanding the frontiers

The final section of the book looks to the future, as far as that is possible. It considers issues such as impact, knowledge translation and next steps for established methodologies such as clinical data mining.

We conclude by saying that practice research will continue to evolve according to the needs of the profession and in response to the practice challenges it seeks to engage with.

I hope that this Handbook will inspire practitioners to engage with practice research. Together we can grow this body of knowledge. We need as a social work profession to own it and to develop it further.

Professor Lynette Joubert (co-editor)

Launch

We had planned to launch the book at the International Conference of Practice Research in Melbourne this month, though this has now been rescheduled to 2021. Instead, today we are having a virtual international launch party for the authors using Zoom.

To support the launch, over the next couple of weeks I will be writing some blogs about some of the chapters I’ve authored or co-authored. This will include guest blogs with co-authors and will start with an interview with my co-editor Lynette Joubert.

In the meantime, more information about the book can be found on the Routledge website.