Good and proper: Considering ethics in practice research

Our Healing: An Empirical Study of the Interrelationship Between Therapeutic Intervention and Spiritual Intervention in a Social Work Private Practice

“…One ofthe first strategies deployed for ensuring rigor in this research was to acknowledge the entanglement ofthe roles of researcher and therapist in one person. Campbell (1997) states that the practitioner/researcher is a "unique hybrid" which can give rich data through the research (Campbell, (1997), p 31).The very nature ofthe research problem emerging from practice meant that the therapist was first aware ofthe need for possible research. However, having used qualitative research previously, it was unrealistic to assume the research roles and therapist roles could ever be totally separate.…”

Social work ethics

“…An internet review of social work ethics produced a number of articles in Australian Social Work on social work ethics. A special ethics edition of Australian Social Work in 1997, for example, included articles on ethics in practice research (Campbell, 1997;Scott, 1997), ethics and social justice (Flynn, 1997;Lane, 1997;Crimeen and Wilson, 1997) and ethical issues in relation to chemotherapy and bioethics (McGrath, 1997), predictive genetic testing (Richards and Taylor, 1997) and medical decision-making (Brown, 1997). Articles in later editions of this journal explored ethical tensions in field research (McAuliffe and Coleman, 1999), privacy and confidentiality in social work (Collingridge et al, 2001), morals, ethics and practice (Asquith and Cheers, 2001) and professional ethics (Hugman, 2003).…”

Researching groupwork

“…This might entail permitting a worker to access the clients of other workers, or giving assent to taking the results of 'insider' research seriously, even if it suggests signifi cant changes to the status quo of practice. (For a detailed discussion of these issues and others, see Campbell, 1997).…”