Innovations in Social Work Research

A valuable reference to help practising researchers not only to understand but also to apply innovative approaches to social work research.

Featuring extended case studies of actual research projects, the book provides an overview of a number of central features and qualities of social work research. It incorporates both distinctive methodological features, such as approaches to participatory inquiry, and provides accounts of researcher strategies to address particular challenges, such as carrying out studies with hard to reach populations. This book combines important methodological insights with pragmatic guidance on commonly experienced problems and how these challenges can be overcome.

This is a key resource for social work and social care students, social work practitioners and academics engaged in research.

“This excellent book offers ample evidence that social work researchers are doing research in imaginative and productive ways across a variety of social work settings. It contains a wealth of insights into the 'doing' of research using a wide variety of methods and showcases the commitment of an impressive cast of authors to using such research to support excellent social work practice.”

This is a rich and stimulating compendium of innovative social work research. Combining many contemporary big names with innovative early career research, this volume illustrates the open-minded, methodological pluralism social work really needs as an academic discipline. -- Sue White, Professor of Social Work (Children and Families), Institute of Applied Social Studies, University of Birmingham
This excellent book offers ample evidence that social work researchers are doing research in imaginative and productive ways across a variety of social work settings. It contains a wealth of insights into the 'doing' of research using a wide variety of methods and showcases the commitment of an impressive cast of authors to using such research to support excellent social work practice. -- Brid Featherstone, Professor of Social Work, Faculty of Health & Social Care, The Open University
The book achieves what I am sure was the main goal of the editors and contributors. It is very pleasing to see a publication that specifically tries to encourage the social work research community to think more widely about methods rather than unreflectively remain tied to trusted research methodologies and methods. The book is thus a welcome addition to the processes of helping to extend the methodological and methods repertoires in social work, and social care, research. -- Michael Clark, Associate Professional Research Fellow Research, Policy and Planning

Cherilyn Dance is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Applied Social Research at the University of Bedfordshire. She previously worked at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, and her primary concern is with services for looked-after children. David Westlake is Research Fellow, Tilda Goldberg Centre for Social Work and Social Care, University of Bedfordshire, UK.

A valuable reference to help practising researchers not only to understand but also to apply innovative approaches to social work research. Featuring extended case studies of actual research projects, the book provides an overview of a number of central features and qualities of social work research. It incorporates both distinctive methodological features, such as approaches to participatory inquiry, and provides accounts of researcher strategies to address particular challenges, such as carrying out studies with hard to reach populations. This book combines important methodological insights with pragmatic guidance on commonly experienced problems and how these challenges can be overcome.This is a key resource for social work and social care students, social work practitioners and academics engaged in research.

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