RESEARCH IN SOCIAL CARE: GUIDELINES FOR RESEARCHERS

These Guidelines have been prepared to help those planning, carrying out or managing research in the field of social care. They are designed to apply to researchers working in both adults’ and children’s services. Those whose research involves the NHS as well as social care, might also find it useful to look at the Guidelines for doing a research project in the health services, produced by RDDirect. 

Social care research is carried out by a great variety of different people, over a great variety of timescales. Your project may be going to take three months or three years. You may be a social care professional researching the service which you and your colleagues provide; you may be a full time researcher engaged in an on-going programme of work; you may be one of a group of service users finding out what people like you think about the care you receive; or you may be a student in a university or college. Whoever you are, we hope you will find the Guidelines useful and we welcome your comments and suggestions for improvements.

1   TURN YOUR IDEA INTO A RESEARCH PLAN

First stages

Where do you start?  Think about answers to the following questions.

• What is the general topic or area of interest?
• What is your research question or hypothesis?
• Why does this topic interest you?
• Why is it important?
• What methods are you planning to use in the course of the research?
• How will the users of the service, or the professionals who staff it, benefit from the research?

Discuss your ideas with others

Prepare a brief outline of your answers to the questions above, and discuss your outline with the person who will be your main adviser for the research?  This may be:

• The research officer or research lead in your council
• A university-based supervisor or director of a research unit
• Your line manager

Other sources of help at this stage might be:

• There may be a research section in your local council
• The Social Services Research Group (SSRG) organises events and courses at which you will meet other researchers
• Research in Practice has links for research on services for children and families and for research on services for adults
• The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) represents directors of adult social services and organises an annual research conference
• RDDirect is a national advice service for researchers
• RDLearning is a database of training courses for researchers in health and social care, including a special edition for postgraduate training and short courses, workshops and conferences.
• National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) is in contact with many voluntary and community organisations
• NHS Research and Development Support Units support high quality and multidisciplinary research in health and social care; there will probably be one in your region.

User Involvement  

Involve service users at all stages of the research process (See User Involvement section) especially:

• Setting the research agenda (See Section 2 of this flowchart)
• Developing the proposal (See Section 3 of this flowchart)
• During the conduct of the project
• Disseminating results (See Section 9 of this flowchart)

Other issues to consider

• Involving service users and carers in planning the research.  Advice on this can be found at INVOLVE
• Collaborating with more experienced researchers: Research in Practice holds a Register of Researchers working in the area of children’s services
• Think about sources of funding for your research (see section 5).  It is important to consider funding at an early stage because funders differ in the amounts of money they have available, the types of research they are prepared to fund and the outputs which they expect from the study
• Think about a sponsor for your research (see section 4)
• You may find it useful to start a ‘Research Diary’ where you jot down ideas and questions, note useful contacts and web sites, and generally track the way your plans change as the project proceeds