• Introduction
• Research in the care environment
• The research industry
• Who funds social work research?
• Links between research and social policy
• Who controls social work research and how?
• Theorising research
• Evidence based practice
• Ethical issues
• Anti-oppressive perspectives
• Monitoring and performance

Introduction

What is the role of research knowledge in social work and social care? Research can help you understand:

• the social world in which service users live
  
• why positive and negative events occur in the lives of some and not others
  
• the relative success of interventions and their impact on these events.
  

Research is one source of knowledge and, in terms of the policies and practices of organisations which intervene in the lives of vulnerable people, not necessarily the most influential. It has to compete with other sources of varying reliability. These include personal experience, the influence of colleagues, the media, organisational norms, policies, procedures and priorities.

A relevant organisation in this context is the international Campbell Collaboration (C2) which is a non-profit organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about the effects of interventions in the social, behavioral and educational arenas.