Professor David Shemmings Chair of Social Work and Deputy Head (Medway campus)

1. Researcher Development Initiative RDI 2 2008-2010Increasing the Competence and Confidence of Social Work Researchers An Action-learning Programme to develop Research CapacityFunded by ESRC and SCIE Professor David Shemmings Chair of Social Work and Deputy Head (Medway campus) School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research University of Kent UK http://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/academic/shemmings.html (then click on ‘RDI 2’)

2. Background • RDI 2 builds on the current Researcher Development Initiative • Made on behalf of the • Joint University Council Social Work Education Committee (JUC SWEC) • Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) • Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education (SIESWE) • Social Work and Policy (SWAP) HEA subject centre.

3. Background • The period between the first RDI and this one has seen the publication of A Social Work Research Strategy in Higher Education: 2006-2020 by the JUC SWEC • see www.swap.ac.uk/research/strategy.asp • Key message • Major investment in social work and social care research in the UK is needed urgently to secure a radical change in capacity and capability

4. Background to the Strategy • Social work and social care services are a vital component of public services in the UK • Adult care services alone were in contact with over three million people in England in 2003/4 • Well over 1.5 million people work in social work and social care services in the UK with more than £14 billion of public funds spent on social care services each year in England alone • Social care is a vital partner in health, education, child safeguarding and criminal justice agendas • But only 0.3% of the overall budget is spent on R&D, compared with 5.4% in health – i.e. 18 times less • Another example: 20 times the amount of R&D monies is spent on a GP than on a social worker.

5. Background to the Strategy • As the discipline underpinning social work and social care research, social work has an historically weak research base and academic infrastructure • Lack of PG opportunities • esp. PhD studentships and bursaries • Journals, conferences and seminars • The reasons for the deficit are varied but have been well documented: • Diverse locations of SWK in HEIs • Lack of a secure base! • Absence of SWK degrees/quals at Oxbridge • Only recently has SWK had its own QAA benchmark statement • Joined with Social Policy and Administration in RAEs

6. Background to the Strategy • Only recently identified as a separate discipline in ESRC, hence: • unrepresented on ESRC committees • impossible to gauge number of applications and awards • The ESRC Demographic Review of the UK Social Sciences (Mills et al, 2006) identifies social work as one of the smaller social sciences, with fewer than 600 permanent staff (out of a total of around 1050) • Only 44% of social work academics were research active in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (Fisher & Marsh, 2003)

7. Background to the Strategy • It is also a subject area with 47% of its staff aged 50 or over • The historical lack of attention to research methods in social work education and training also influences the research capacity of social work academics (Orme & Powell, 2005) • This all affects the capacity of social work to deliver doctoral programmes (Orme, 2003, Orme & Powell, 2005).

8. What’s distinctive about the SWK research strategy? • Uncommon for disciplines as a group have to an agreed position across HEIs nationally • In the US there is the IASWR (but it is not concerned primarily with HEIs) • Our national strategic research plan is, as far as we know, the first of its kind.

9. Aims and Outcomes of RDI 2 • Assuming a moderately successful conversion rate from proposal to funding, an increase in the number of high-quality, social work-related research projects • A series of three ‘expert classes’, focusing on contemporary methods relevant to social work research, especially where there are known gaps in knowledge(s) and experience • An opportunity for 15 participants to spend a month on a ‘mini-placement’ with a network of registered providers of systematic reviews coordinated by SCIE to provide direct experience of undertaking scoping studies and systematic reviews

10. RDI 2 in practice • 56 HEFCE-funded staff to join 7 topic-based Action Learning sets (LSets) • to develop promising lines of research enquiry through to a fully-costed completed design, ready for submission to a funding source • Links with mentors with track records of success in specific research topics • RDI 2 is aimed at achieving a ‘tipping-point’ in the development of academic social work research

11. RDI 2 in practice • Three 2-day (or 2x2 day) seminars for participants in: • Systematic Reviews and Scoping Studies (2 day) • Experiments and Instrument design sympathetic to social work values (2 day) • Contemporary Qualitative and Quantitative Methods (2x2 day) • Post-graduate researchers will be invited to attend sessions, if space is available

12. Action Learning Sets • LSets will each meet five times at a local collaborating university • we will fix dates this afternoon • Participants are encouraged to identify mentors who have track records of success in specific research topics

13. Seminar 1Systematic reviews and scoping studies An intensive 2-day seminar for 25 participants on the processes involved in SR will be organised and run by Esther Coren • Protocols • Question definition • Specifying the field clearly • Operationalising the question • Inclusion and Exclusion criteria • Search strategy • Using synonyms and Boolean logic • Managing references • Screening results • Determining eligibility for inclusion • Developing quality assessment criteria • Using analytic and critical appraisal skills • Data synthesis • Drawing conclusions and making inferences

14. Systematic reviews and scoping studiesPlacements • Fifteen 1-month placements, offered by SCIE and a number of other organisations including • SIESWE • Eppi-Centre, Institute of Education • Kings College • Sussex • Lancaster • Central Lancashire • Participants will shadow experienced researchers working on systematic reviews • Universities cover for a member of staff at no cost, as part of its staff development commitment • Host organisations will receive a payment for the one-month placement; participants will receive a contribution towards expenses.

15. Seminar 2 Experiments and Instrumentation • Experimental designs are particularly difficult to apply in social work settings, partly because such interventions take place in complex social situations. • In particular • the processes of referral to services and decision about intervention are complex • decisions about other challenges, such as the need for protection of vulnerable individuals, may overlap with the particular intervention • Social work also favours complex psycho-social interventions, the relative contribution of which can be difficult to evaluate • Finally, social work sees the involvement of service users as central, but upon which traditionally the use of RCTs has placed a low premium.

16. Seminar 2Experiments and Instrumentation • A 2-day workshop for 25 participants will take place, designed to facilitate: • The use of RCTs and quasi-experimental studies designed specifically for social work applications • The use of scales and instruments in social work research (and practice)

17. Seminar 3Contemporary qualitative and quantitative methods • This phase will explore to ease the distinction between qualitative and quantitative binary dichotomies. • This seminar will offer two, linked 2-day workshops for 25 participants including: • New(er) qualitative methods including: • Actor-network analysis • Critical ethnography • Data support packages (CAQDAS, NVivo) • Biographic-Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) • Mixing epistemologies, including Q-Methodology (see Shemmings, 2006) • Unlocking the potential of contemporary advanced statistical techniques to include: • Bayesian analysis, Path Analysis, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM), logistic regression and dyadic data analysis (IPIM) • Meta-analytic data techniques

18. References • Brockbank, A. and McGill, I. (2003) The Action Learning Handbook. Abingdon, Routledge. • Carpenter, J. (2005) Evaluating Outcomes in Social Work Education. London, Scie/SIESWE. • JUCSWEC (2006) A Social Work Research Strategy in Higher Education: 2006-2020, Joint Universities Council for Social Work Education Committee’s Research Sub-Committee at http://www.swap.ac.uk/research/strategy.asp • Shaw, I., Arksey, H., & Mullender, A. (2004) ESRC Research, Social Work and Social Care, London: Social Care Institute for Excellence • Shaw, I., H. Arksey, et al. (2004) ESRC, Research, Social Work and Social Care London, Scie. • Shemmings, D. (2006) ‘“Quantifying” qualitative data: an illustrative example of the use of Q methodology in psychosocial research’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), April 2006, pp 147-165. • Walter, I., Nutley, S, Piercey-Smith, J., McNeish, D. & S. Frost (2004) Improving the use of research in social care practiceLondon, Scie.