Practice Research in the Human Services

This book offers a practical approach to conducting practice research in the field of human services. This evolving form of applied research seeks to understand practice in the context of the relationships between service providers and service users, between service providers and their managers, between agency-based service providers and community advocacy and support groups, and between agency managers and policy makers. Practice research represents a form of evidence-informed practice that involves a wide array of research designs and methods, in contrast to the narrower emphasis on experimental designs that characterizes evidence-based practice. The emerging principles and practices associated with practice research highlight: 1) including multiple, diverse stakeholders, 2) maximizing and negotiating participation, 3) promoting practitioner engagement in all phases of the research process, and 4) developing new identities for participants as research-minded practitioners and practice-minded researchers. The book is designed for researchers, practitioners, service users and students, and focuses on concrete experiences that illustrate the processes and activities involved in a specific, locally negotiated model of practice research. The book describes multiple practice research studies across an array of fields of practice in the human services, focusing on the research questions, designs, roles and relationships that have been developed in the context of a university-agency practice research partnership. These descriptions and stories are used to construct a comprehensive, detailed picture of the research process. Based upon these descriptions, the book synthesizes a set of broader principles and guidelines for practice researchers.