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The effort of our School of Social Work's Diversity Committee to create an engaging presentation/performance focusing on the social issue of racism to our faculty and staff colleagues is described in this article. Our journey to develop two specific performances is outlined, along with descriptions of each and the audience reactions. As we reflected on our experiences with these performances, we recognized the value of using non-traditional forms of presentations in the academic setting to create a meaningful experience that would be most engaging with our academic colleagues. Developing these performances, enacting them, and receiving critical feedback on those performances emboldened us to develop additional performances (rather than traditional formal presentations) in our academic setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of practice guidelines is a relatively recent development in social work. Because of their antecedents in evidence-based medicine, methods for producing guidelines have been dominated by quantitative approaches to systematic reviewing with relatively little attention given to the integration of qualitative forms of knowledge. The under-representation of qualitative research, and dependence on meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials, threatens to marginalize important perspectives such as process and implementation data, as well as the voice of service users. Increasing integration of health and social care services also requires that practice guidance incorporates forms of knowledge that are relevant to social care. This article describes methods used to develop the first two national practice guidelines for England and Wales (for dementia care and parent-education/training programmes) produced jointly by the Social Care Institute for Excellence and National Institute for Clinical and Health Excellence. These guidelines demonstrate innovation in their approaches to incorporation of qualitative perspectives. Implications of these two exemplars are considered for future guideline development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing interest in critical realism and its application to social work. This article makes a case for adopting this philosophical position in qualitative social work research. More specifically, it suggests that there is a concordance between critical realist premises and action research with its cyclical inquiry and advancement of social change. This combination of philosophy and method, it is argued, promotes anti-oppressive social work research and illuminates the processes shaping outcomes in programme evaluations. Overall, the article underscores the importance of 'depth' in qualitative inquiry by conceiving the social world in terms of five interlacing, social domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, 'revisiting' refers to a variety of ways in which the researcher visits the research site again and in which the relations between the first and later visits are given some consideration substantially and methodologically. Revisiting may be done either for testing and/or enriching existing knowledge. It is claimed that time-aware research is needed in social work especially now when postmodern notions of continuous change are commonly present. Some ethnographic experiences of youth residential care are used to demonstrate the characteristics of revisiting. Revisiting tends to underline the importance of time, in particular biographical and institutional time and (shared) memories, as well as social relations within the field and their interwovenness. In the presented case study, revisiting highlights stability and changes equally and frames the issue of 'change' in a new way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's response on the paper "The Obligation to bring about Good in Social work Research: A New Perspective," by Ellen Bogolub on nursing research. She reflects the issue whether a less traditional qualitative approach would have avoided or eased the dilemma in this field. She contends that the meaning of good and the ways to achieve it varies. She points out that the ethics of doing good occurs between liberal humanist conceptions and postmodern perspectives.

The article presents the author's response on the paper "The Obligation to bring about Good in Social work Research," by Ellen Bogolub on nursing research. He relates the paper from his own experience as a sociologist. He suggests that the hallowed first research rule is insufficient. He points out that one needs to try perform small courtesies for the research participants.

Ethically, social work researchers should bring about good for research respondents. Referring to the work of other researchers who support beneficent research, this article describes an activity that can bring about such good: the identification and reporting of possible service gaps affecting research respondents. I identified this activity during a pilot qualitative study of children's views regarding foster care. Specifically, interview transcript analysis highlighted comments suggesting unanticipated questions about services children received. Because of its characteristic methods of obtaining and analyzing data, qualitative research seems particularly likely to raise such unanticipated questions. Despite fear of jeopardizing future research possibilities, I raised the unanticipated questions about services at the agency. I aimed to enable the agency to address the questions, thereby helping children. In this case impact on agency services was slight. Nonetheless, the researcher's obligation to report possible service gaps at agencies providing research samples was underscored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]