Hess, M. and Mullen, E.J., (Eds.) (1995). Practitioner-research partnerships: Building knowledge from, in, and for practice. Washington, D.C.: National Association of Social Workers Press.
Practitioner-Researcher Partnerships: Building Knowledge From, In, and For Practice was published in February 1995 by NASW Press. The book includes original chapters as well as papers prepared for the Center's 1993 conference, Knowledge for Practice: Practitioners and Researchers as Partners (see Table of Contents, below). It is edited by Peg Hess, CUSSW Associate Professor and Associate Dean, and Edward Mullen, CUSSW Willma and Albert Musher Professor and Center Director. Following is an excerpt from its Foreword.
Excerpts from the Foreword
For at least three decades, social workers of all types, practitioners, administrators, researchers and educators, have inveighed about the need to build effective partnerships between the worlds of research and practice. Yet, their actions and accomplishments have lagged far behind their rhetoric, exhortations and hopes. They have not kept pace with the ever accelerating demands for productive partnerships and with the enviable progress made by allied helping professions. The extant literature reveals few examples of effective practice-research collaborations in social work. Nor does it provide practical considerations that need to be pondered if such partnerships are to be realized.
If the worlds of social work practice and research do not soon respond to the growing demands for meaningful collaboration, it is entirely possible that the profession will squander a crucial opportunity to improve its effectiveness, to demonstrate that it merits strong fiscal and moral support, and to sustain, much less enhance, its credibility and standing in the eyes of clients, policy makers, funders and fellow professionals.
Publication of [this book] is therefore timely, relevant and of overarching importance for all sectors of the social work profession. It does not merely add one more voice to the call for effective linkages between research and practice. Rather, it draws upon the talents of numerous contributors who consider in depth and breath the myriad variables that must be understood to bring about such partnerships. It can reassure doubting skeptics and worried professionals by demonstrating that it is possible, in fact, to forge effective partnerships between social work researchers and practitioners.
In sum the authors promote effective partnerships between social work research and practice by addressing in rich detail the complexities that must be considered if true advances are to be made.
Alan B. Siskind, PhD, Executive Vice President Jewish Board of Family & Children's Services
Ronald A. Feldman, PhD, Dean Columbia University School of Social Work
Peg McCartt Hess, Ph.D. and Edward J Mullen, D.S.W. (Editors)
Chapter 1. Bridging the Gap: Collaborative Considerations in Practitioner Researcher Knowledge-Building Relationships
Peg McCartt Hess, PhD & Edward J. Mullen, DSW
Chapter 2. Reflective Inquiry in Social Work Practice
Donald A. Schön
Chapter 3. Reflecting In and On Practice: A Role for Practitioners in Knowledge Building
Peg McCartt Hess, PhD
Chapter 4. Promoting Reflective Social Work Practice: Research Strategies and Consulting Principles
Irwin Epstein, PhD
Chapter 5. Research for Initiatives in Low-income Communities
Claudia Colton, PhD
Chapter 6. Research as an Act of Practice
Juliet Cheetham, MA
Chapter 7. Intersecting the Parallel Worlds of Practice and Research: An Agency Practitioner-Academic Researcher Team
Denise Burnette, PhD & Audrey Weiner, DSW
Chapter 8. The Practitioner-Researcher Team: A Case Example
Rita Beck Black, DSW & Virginia Walter, MSW
Chapter 9. Agency-University Collaboration: Partnerships for Implementing and Studying Practice Innovations
Arthur Blum, DSW, David E. Biegel, PhD, Elizabeth M. Tracy, PhD & Mary Jane Cole, MSW
Chapter 10. Research Collaboration Among Hospital Social Work Administrators
Mildred Mailick, DSW Michael King, DSW James Donnelly, DSW & Sona Euster, ACSW
Chapter 11. Developing a Research Unit Within A Hospital Social Work Department
Grace H. Christ, DSW & Karolynn Siegel, PhD
Chapter 12. The Expert System as a Metaphor for Professional Knowledge Development
William J. Fems, PhD & Manon Reidel, CSW
Chapter 13. Research, Practice and Expert Systems
John Schuemman, PhD
Chapter 14. Toward Research Practice Development
Edward J. Mullen, DSW & Peg McCartt Hess. PhD