Qualitative Research in Practice : Stories From the Field - Blogs Unpad

Qualitative research in practice
Dorothy:
Caroline:
work practice. At conferences people tell me it has
changed the way they do things, and [that] it’s quoted
all over the place. Certainly my project director—
well, one of them in particular, who has been doing
policy-related research for many years—has told me
he’s pretty sure that it’s having more impact than
many other studies he’s been involved in. I wonder if
this is because of its simplicity, in a way ...
What do you think practitioners will do with it? What
would you hope that many practitioners would have
learned, fundamentally, about how to work with
children in the process of adoption?
Because we were fortunate enough to include some of
the tools in the book, I hope it will give them inspiration,
and some confidence. Perhaps what I didn’t
manage to convey in the book was how I felt we
learned a lot from very good practitioners, who do
direct work with children, in our consultation process
when we were developing the tools ...Our whole
approach was really about bringing together expertise
and views from lots of different sources, including
social work practice itself. When I make presentations
to practitioners I always feel a little bit uneasy handing
back to them what they have given to me. Sometimes
I say, depending on the audience, ‘Really, you taught
me this.’
Liz Kelly—Domestic violence matters
Liz:
Interestingly, I think that the study—in terms of the
document itself—has been less influential than other
things we have done, that we have been paid less
money for ...I think that is partly to do with [the fact]
that it stayed in the Home Office for three years after
it was finished, which meant that there was a timing
issue. Had it come out a year after it was finished
when people were asking questions about it—and
there was an interest in the outcomes—I think it
probably would have had more impact. It has, though,
affected how we present material about domestic
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