While the previous focus has been on the impact of practice research on social work practice and service user participation, it is also important to note the impact of social work practice and service user participation on practice research. The conduct of practice research often requires some organizational stability in the often-unstable environment of human service organizations. For example, conditions impacting practice research often include:

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•    the short-term time horizons of practice in contrast to the longer-term horizons of research implementation (e.g. something that takes a month to accomplish inside a human service organization can take a year with a research context),

•    the informal securing of approval inside a human service organization differs from the formal contracting of practice research,

•    the longer time horizon for building trust inside a human service organization differs from the shortened time horizon needed for the implementation of practice research,

•    the competing institutional logics (e.g. the top-down administrative structures required for service delivery with the bottom-up processes involved in generating practice research), and

•    fundamentally different orientations to outcomes (e.g. the practice environment calls for the immediate measuring of client impact while practice research calls for the slow and steady development of knowledge over time as well as the shared values and organizational capacities needed to utilize the results of practice research). Research is often too fast and too well organized to include service users challenged by several issues including not being full-time researchers.

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APPENDIX A: Discussion Questions Related to Transforming Practice and Practice Research: A Guide for Future Practice Researchers

People

1. What elements are needed to enable practitioners in human service organizations to fully engage in all phases of practice research?

   • How do practitioners find time to participate in practice research?

   • How do practitioners incorporate practice research findings into their daily lives?What are the characteristics of research-minded practitioners and what organizational supports are needed to engage them?

2. What role do curiosity, reflective practice, and critical thinking play in the daily lives of practitioners?

   • How can practitioners demonstrate an interest in life-long learning as well as an interest in leading practice research projects?

   • What are the characteristics of practice-minded researchers?

3. What roles do the recognition of researcher status, willingness to learn and power difference play when engaging in practice research?

   • How can practice-minded researchers assist with transforming practice research findings into advocacy campaigns or legislative proposals?

   • What supports are needed to enable service users to fully engage in the processes of practice research?

4. How realistic is it for service users to find time to participate in practice research?

   • To what extent are service users operating at a disadvantage when engaging with experienced practitioners and researchers as they use their expertise of experience

Processes

1. What supports are needed for university-based and agency-based researchers to launch practice research projects that meaningfully impact clinical, organizational or community issues?

   • What can be learned from the life cycle of practice research (launching, implementing, disseminating, utilizing) that can inform the processes of transforming practice?

2. What supports are needed to enable service users to fully engage in the processes of practice research?

   • How realistic is it for service users to find time to participate in practice research?

   • To what extent are service users operating at a disadvantage when engaging with experienced practitioners and researchers as they use their expertise of experience?

Outcomes

1. What elements are needed to produce credible evidence in human service organizations?

   • How do practitioners articulate realistic and meaningful benefits and effectiveness associated with social work practice?

   • How do human service organizations identify relevant practices that can achieve these benefits? 

2. What are the critical success factors to ensure research findings will impact practice?

   • How do we reduce the gap between academically driven questions and social work practice questions?
      

APPENDIX B: International Illustrations of the Impact of Practice Research on Social Work Practice

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While identifying the major concepts underlying the reciprocal impact of transforming practice research and social work practice, it is also helpful to provide some recent illustrations of the transformative process from different parts of the world (China, USA, Finland, New Zealand,  Italy and Australia). The illustrations provide a context for using past experiences to understand the present and imagine a future, the essence of visioning. Some illustrations feature primarily one-way transformational impact while others reflect the reciprocal impact. While some of the illustrations begin to suggest preliminary evidence of the impact of practice research, the challenge for the future is to document robust evidence that truly transforms practice, the multiple ways that transformed practice informs the conduct of practice research, and the details of how practice research actually transforms practice.

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1. Promoting a social change agenda inside and outside the network of public and nonprofit services – Singapore 
   Based upon a practice research study of recovering from a massive earthquake, an example of a new model of practice emerged in the form of the following SICHUAN model:
   a.   step-by-step to promote the involvement of local citizens or service users, 
   b.   involvement in the form of relationship building between practitioners, researchers, and service users by capturing the daily practices that could include retaining or restoring the respective voices of the major stakeholders, 
   c.   awareness of the political, social and cultural context of the major stakeholders, 
   d.   recognition of community-based interventions that improve social and psychological wellbeing, 
   e.   united efforts that are collaborative among all stakeholders that include open and critical thinking, and 
   f.   serving the best interests of vulnerable populations by advocating for those who are disadvantaged and marginalized as reflected in the ethics of doing no harm, promoting self-determination, and respect for human dignity. 
   The model focuses on the impact of practice research on transforming social work practice. In essence, practice research can be transformative when it leads us to revisiting our fundamental assumptions about the nature of knowledge, how it is created, and what types of knowledge and whose knowledge is valued. 
   (Sim, T. and Fook, J. (2024). ‘Practice Research and Transformative Social Work – Evolving Concepts and Social Impact’ in Fook, J. and Jatlow, D. (eds). Transformative Social Work. New York: Columbia University Press) 
    

2. Transforming Management Practice – USA
   Lessons learned from managing the impact of the Great Recession (2008-2012) on public human service organizations calling for transforming management practices that included the: a) restructuring communications up and down the organizational hierarchy, b) need to address the financial literacy of middle-management staff related to revenue sources and expenditures, and c) call for organizational restructuring to reduce overlap and redundancy.
   (Graaf, G., Carnochan, S., Radu, P. & Austin, M.J. (2016). The impact of the great recession on county human service organizations: A cross-case analysis. Human Service Organizations. 40(2), 152-169) 
    

3. Transforming Child Welfare Practice – Finland

   The lessons learned from the practice research processes of the Heikki Waris Institute related to the child protection field of practice emerged from the co-development of an operating model for joint research entitled “Time for Inclusion”. Its approach to service user involvement featured “experts by experience” who were youth experiencing the child welfare system. After several collaborative research projects in Heikki Waris -institute, the “Time for Inclusion” was born as a collaboration between young clients and professionals in 2014 to address the need to consult young people in decision-making related to practice research. The original goal of the model was to give clients a voice and the opportunity to participate in development and reporting on social work. This empowerment goal provided a way to challenge traditional social work practice that needed to take into account and amplify the voices of service users. This form of collaborative knowledge-creation was used to influence social work teaching, continuing professional education, workforce development, and participation in social debate related to political decision-making. The outcome was a booklet entitled “Client Work as an Encounter”.
   Ultimately the practice research conducted by the Heikki Waris Institute helped to promote a national child-centered approach to child protection.
   (Larkins, C., Kiili, J., & Palsanen, K. (2014). A lattice of participation: reflecting on examples of children’s and young people’s collective engagement in influencing social welfare policies and practices. European Journal of Social Work, 17(5), 718–736).
    

4. The Impact of Service User Involvement in Transforming Community Practice – New Zealand 
   Positive experience of working with an intermediary agent has resulted in exploring third party involvement to address organizational needs and practice questions. Intermediary roles are defined differently in different contexts, and they employ different strategies to enable and support practice research. It is important to consider who can fulfil the role based on the needs of the project and the nature of collaborations. More evidence on the role and influence of intermediary agents in health and social care research can impact a strategy to launch research that is more engaging, accessible, and useful for organizations, practitioners and end-users. 
   (McBeath et al, (2027). Challenges and Opportunities Related to Launching Practice Research Projects, publication pending).
    

5. Impact of practice research on promoting community change – South Africa 
   The 2022 floods in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) were the worst natural disaster since 1987. The floods killed 459 people and 80 people missing, destroyed over 4,000 homes, displaced 40,000 people and temporarily put 45,000 out of work. The floods shattered infrastructure networks and exposed and widened existing social inequities, creating enormous psychological and material strain on affected communities.  As a result, our practice research methodologies needed to adapt to the realities of disaster-affected populations. Several key findings reshaped our understanding of effective disaster response in social work: 
   a)   Traditional approaches of individual-focused interventions needed to adapt to providing community members with an active role in shaping the research process, transitioning from passive subjects to co-creators of knowledge thereby integrating indigenous coping mechanisms (e.g. collective mourning and spiritual healing) into psychosocial interventions.
   b)   Community members expressed a preference for group-based recruitment of research informants conducted in communal spaces such as community halls where communal identity and collective well-being prioritize Indigenous African societies and thereby healing and problem-solving are seen as community rather than individual responsibilities. 
   c)   To gain access to affected communities, one needed to engage both official authorities and traditional leaders, spiritual healers, and grassroots networks where participants stressed the importance of seeking the approval of their ancestors before they could participate in the study. 4) Acknowledging the importance of adopting a holistic approach that respects the cosmic unity that is so central to the African worldviews. 
   d)   In order to make the practice research restorative rather than extractive, the research team-built trust through relational accountability requiring sustained interaction, mutual knowledge sharing, and transparent communication about the study's objectives. 
   e)   Study participants were given a list of available psychosocial services related to disaster recovery that called for collaboration with other disciplines. 
   f)   The link between universities, NGOs, and local community structures was also strengthened to ensure that support extended beyond the research period.
    

6. Italy: Programme of Intervention for Prevention of Institutionalization P.I.P.P.I.
   P.I.P.P.I. offers a compelling Italian illustration of the reciprocal transformative impact between practice-research and social work practice. Developed since 2011 through a sustained collaboration between the Laboratory of Research and Intervention on Family Education at the University of Padova and the Italian Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, P.I.P.P.I. is an innovative programme designed to reduce child neglect and prevent out-of-home placement for children aged 0–14.
   From a pilot in 10 cities (2011–2013), the programme has scaled up to reach all 506 local territorial areas of Italy, involving to date approximately 17,580 children and their families and a community of practice and research of 19,324 practitioners. It is now recognised by Italian law as a LEPS — Essential Level of Social Provision — meaning it is now recognised by Italian law as a fundamental standard of child and family welfare that must be guaranteed across the entire country.
   The programme's growth has been sustained by continuous dialogue across multiple levels: at the macro level, through ongoing negotiations between the Academy and national and local social policy actors; and at the micro level, through close collaboration between researchers and practitioners co-developing innovative approaches to family intervention. These spaces of encounter have proven essential — from mutual listening, new understandings emerge, and a sense of collective process takes shape, motivating and strengthening practitioners. Research, in this model, is not an external activity imposed on practice, but a process woven into the everyday work of the teams, building what might be called a community of reflective practice — where rigorous knowledge production never loses sight of relationships, trust, and the transformative power of shared reflection.
   At the heart of P.I.P.P.I. is its dual-track research methodology, which makes the programme particularly relevant in this context. The first track follows more traditional approaches: collecting and analysing qualitative and quantitative data, conducting experimental studies, focus groups, and interviews. The second — and more innovative — track centres on accompanying the Participative and Transformative Evaluation (PTE) carried out by multidisciplinary teams together with families. Here, practitioners and families act as co-researchers, using research tools to surface experiential and professional knowledge, foster reflective thinking, and generate new shared understanding to respond to children’s developmental needs.
   In this framework, researchers shift from data collectors to facilitators of reflective communities of practice, creating spaces of practice-research where knowledge flows continuously — from research into practice and from practice back into research.