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.

Public Child Welfare: A Casebook for Learning and Teaching provides social work students and practicing social workers with 20 real-world cases gathered from four California county child welfare agencies. Readers are exposed to the stories of social workers and families involved in child welfare services. The rich and varied content captures the daily complexities, challenges, and successes that social workers experience in the field. Framed within the context of relevant national and state policy and practices, the cases address a variety of child welfare issues including neglect and abuse, substance abuse, domestic violence, criminal justice involvement, mental health, reunification and adoption, and more. Case-based learning relates to family dynamics, initial risks and harms, finding the right home for the child, court proceedings, and the trajectory of these complex cases over time. Public Child Welfare challenges social work students and practitioners to critically examine documented, real-world cases to inform and strengthen their own practices. The casebook is an ideal resource for social work courses, child welfare seminars, and agency-based training programs.