research in practice

research in practice was established in September 1996 as an ADSS initiative in partnership with the Dartington Social Research Unit. It arose out of many years’ worth of discussions about the relatively poor access to and use of research within children and families work.

While there are a number of reasons for this, one new direction was for the service to take some responsibility itself - voluntarily - to change and improve this state of affairs. Twenty-five social services departments joined in the first year with the, then, sole charge to research in practice of disseminating relevant and reliable research.

This function has widened to include support for the adoption and implementation of research, seeking to change the culture of organisations as well as its working practices.

Over its first two years other social services departments and voluntary organisations sought to join and in 1998 an expansion saw membership increase to 56 with bases in both Dartington and Sheffield.

research in practice became a key partner in the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) on its inception in 2007. They are our professional sponsors.

research in practice is now the largest childcare research utilisation organisation in England and Wales with almost 100 agencies in this dynamic, collaborative network.

new Partners are now invited to join the research in practice network

As a consequence of our decision to consolidate and expand both the scope and breadth of our work, we are now able to welcome more agencies (including local consortia of agencies) and would welcome enquiries from those who wish to join research in practice as Partners.

We wish to enable more agencies to join the research in practice network and to do so in multi-disciplinary and agency groupings, whilst also encouraging all new and existing Partners to re-arrange their Partner status or re-join as a local partnership.

For more information on joining the network please contact:

Celia Atherton
Director
celia@rip.org.uk