Researching Social Work Practice Ethically and Developing Ethical Researchers

ABSTRACT

Social work research is an ethically significant activity in that both the processes and the outcomes have ethical ramifications for those involved. This paper discusses the ethically important moments in a multi-agency evaluation carried out by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers. It shows how the formal ethical approval process was of some benefit but was expensive, time-consuming and of limited utility when some unexpected ethical issues needed to be considered at a later stage of the project. The paper stresses the importance of developing the identity of an ethical researcher during a research project and provides suggestions of strategies to achieve this for both researchers and partners. A social work researcher should be able to engage with ethical issues during research projects without becoming restricted to discussions of bureaucratic processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethics
• social work research
• multi-agency practice
• child protection

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of research assistants Sera Harris and Estrella Pearce to the work set out in this paper. They would also like to acknowledge funders and research participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Brian Stout is Dean, School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University.

Ann Dadich is Associate Professor in Management, School of Business, Western Sydney University.

Susan Evans is Casual Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University.

Debbie Plath is Professor and Head of Social Work Discipline at the Australian Catholic University.

Kenny Lawson is Associate Professor in Health Economics, Hunter Medical Research Institute.

Additional information

Funding

The research project was funded by statutory agencies in New South Wales, Australia (NSW) in a contract facilitated by the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet.