Research as an intervention: A case study on violence against children in Peru

CRFR co-director Dr Sarah Morton, and colleague Tabitha Casey, share some of their findings from the recently published report, which examined the impact of a research programme aiming to prevent violence against children in Peru.

---

Preventing violence against children is becoming more of a focus for policy makers, with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals including targets that aim to eliminate violence everywhere. How governments can achieve this is not so straightforward, however.

In 2014, UNICEF Office of Research- Innocenti and partners launched the Multi-Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children in order to help governments understand and address this issue. The Study focused on four countries – Italy, Zimbabwe, Viet Nam and Peru – and partnered with Dr Debi Fry, Moray House School of Education, and Young Lives, based at the University of Oxford. Two years later we undertook a joint impact assessment with UNICEF to examine the impact of this research programme in Peru.

Few impact evaluations are carried out in low-and-middle-income countries (LMIC), especially on violence prevention research. Our aim was to assess the outcomes of the Multi-Country Study in Peru and also to test the Research Contribution Framework (RCF) (Morton, 2015), developed to examine how research uptake and use ‘contributes’ to policy and practice change, in a LMIC.

The RCF requires key partners to agree the main mechanisms through which the research might impact on policy or practice, which are then tested, along with key risks and assumptions. We collated all existing evidence (e.g. media, downloads, email testimonial), assessed the gaps in evidence and then took a field trip to Peru to gather more material. In Peru we conducted a range of stakeholder interviews with government, academic and UNICEF partners to assess whether the Study contributed to changes in awareness, knowledge, skills, behaviour, policy and practice among key stakeholders.

The impact assessment found that the multi-partner, relationships-driven approach of the Multi-Country Study helped to maximise impact in Peru. It was also important that the Study was nationally-led: this made sure that the findings were specific to Peru, which was key, considering the country’s geographic diversity and multi-culturalism, and also helped ensure national ownership and data sovereignty.

By using this approach, the Multi-Country Study contributed to a number of policy and programme changes in Peru, including the passage of a law banning corporal punishment in all settings. By focusing on capacity-building and awareness raising activities, the Study also helped to give violence against children a higher political priority, and study partners are committed to keeping it on the political agenda.

Recommendations from the impact assessment include:

• Plan sufficient timing – as well as flexibility - into the research design in order to build effective, trusting partnerships.
• Define and support key actors to take knowledge-brokering roles in order to ensure clear communication and engagement among study partners in complex projects.
• Plan an impact strategy from the start. Strategies should address complexity from the beginning, and also identify key monitoring criteria as well as risks and assumptions.

The RCF used here could be used both as an evaluation method and a planning tool to develop an impact strategy. Through this impact assessment, we found that the framework is adaptable and effective in a LMIC, and could be used to assess research impact in other contexts.

---

For more on the Multi-Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children, visit the study site at: https://www.unicef-irc.org/research/274/

More information about the Peru study can be found here (in Spanish): https://www.unicef.org/peru/spanish/resources_33614.html

Sarah Morton (2015) Progressing research impact assessment: A ‘contributions’ approach. Res Eval 2015; 24 (4): 405-419. doi: 10.1093/reseval/rvv016

When is it safe to disclose childhood sexual abuse?

Rusan Lateef, MSW, RSW is a social worker employed in the criminal justice system with adult male offenders in Ontario, Canada. She is a researcher on the “Make Resilience Matter” project examining childhood exposure to domestic violence at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, a project that involves collaboration with CRFR Co-Director Sarah Morton. 

Here, Rusan shares some of the findings from a recently published article on childhood sexual abuse disclosures, which she co-authored.

---

There have been on-going efforts to improve the identification of children who have been sexually abused and to encourage disclosures. It is important to consider, however, if disclosing actually promotes well-being and resilience among survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). If it does, how can we promote disclosures, and with that resilience, with children who have been sexually abused? A previous CRFR blog post by Dr Sarah Nelson provided insight into child-centred ways to facilitate CSA disclosures: http://crfrblog.blogspot.ca/2016/11/silencing-and-disclosure-in-child.html

Disclosure is usually the first step toward a child being linked with supportive resources that could initiate their healing and prevent the adverse consequences of CSA. Unfortunately, disclosing can lead to anything but healing when the environment in which a disclosure takes place is not supportive. Some researchers have even found that it is risky to tell in childhood as unsuccessful disclosures may result in children experiencing further helplessness (Jonzon & Lindblad, 2004). The media provides multiple examples of individuals who have disclosed sexual abuse and have not received support from the general public or from family and friends – experiencing victim blaming and lack of validation for their experiences. It is easy to see how this could discourage survivors to disclose. Aside from negative media examples, the literature review by Alaggia, Collin-Vézina & Lateef (2017) identified various other barriers to CSA disclosure including, but not limited to:

Internal factors
• Internalized victim blaming
• Immature development at onset of abuse
• Gender
• Shame
• Self-blame
• Fear
• Perception that one will not be believed by people outside of their family

Family characteristics
• Rigidly fixed patriarchal based roles
• Power imbalances
• Domestic violence
• Chaotic family organization
• Dysfunctional communication
• Social isolation
• Preserving the family reputation
• Relationship of the perpetrator to the child victim

Sociocultural factors
• Negative labelling of sexual abuse victims
• Taboos surrounding sexuality and talking about sex
• Promotion of hyper-masculinity
• Patriarchal attitudes
• Views that boys and men cannot be victimized
• Homophobic attitudes
• Sexualization and objectification of girls and women
• Devaluation of women
• Lack of school involvement in providing a supportive environment

When encouraging CSA disclosures, it is important to be informing the public about the numerous barriers children experience, meanwhile creating awareness of the type of environment and factors that encourage disclosures, and how to properly support a child post-disclosure. Facilitators of CSA disclosures were also identified in the review and included:

Internal factors
• Symptoms that become unbearable
• Older age
• Increased developmental efficacy
• Realizing that an offence was committed

Environmental factors
• Child discloses after evidence provided or eye-witnessing has occurred
• Settings that provide opportunities for disclosure (ex. counselling, interviews); prevention programs
• Culturally sensitive probes and questions
• Creating openness in relational contexts; close relationships
• Supportive family members and individuals close to the child victim

Finally, it is important to recognize that there are CSA survivors who are resilient and function adaptively --both those who have and have not disclosed. Domhardt and colleagues (2015) in their review identified important factors associated with greater resilience among CSA survivors that include:

• Education
• Interpersonal and emotional competence
• Control beliefs
• Active coping
• Optimism
• Social attachment
• External attribution of blame
• Support from the family and the wider social environment

In summary, research has identified what factors encourage and discourage disclosures, as well as what factors promote resilience among CSA survivors. Taken together, these findings could help facilitate safe disclosures and positive post-disclosure outcomes.

---

References

Alaggia, R., Collin-Vézina, D., Lateef, R. (2017). Facilitators and Barriers to Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Disclosures: A Research Update (2000-2016). Trauma, Violence & Abuse. DOI: 10.1177/1524838017697312

Domhardt, M., Münzer, A., Fegert, J., & Goldbeck, L. (2015). Resilience in survivors of CSA: A systematic review of the literature. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 16(4), 476-493.

Jonzon, E., & Lindblad, F. (2004). Disclosure, reactions, and social support: Findings from a sample of adult victims of CSA. Child Maltreatment, 9(2), 190-200.

Getting evidence into action: how can we understand what we already know?

Our Co-director, Dr Sarah Morton writes about the processes involved in setting up an Evidence Bank to support public and voluntary sector partners in accessing existing research evidence to help to inform decision making.

At the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships we have always valued working closely with non-academic partners. At the end of one particular research partnership with national family organisations (Cool with Change) we started a conversation about what other research the partnership might do together. Many of the topics our partners were interested in were areas where there was already a lot of research, but it was very difficult for these non-academic agencies to get a sense of what that research was. So we set out together to develop ways to make existing research more useful.

We explain the reviewing process we developed to address that issue in an article just published by the journal Evidence and Policy (Evidence synthesis for knowledge exchange: balancing responsiveness and quality in providing evidence for policy and practice). The process focussed on making sure that evidence was useful, timely and relevant, and could be put into action by people working in children and family services.

Why is evidence reviewing important?

Often people need to understand what we already know from research in order to develop services. Traditional systematic reviewing is time consuming and often doesn’t offer very accessible summaries. Our evidence bank process sought to address these issues.

What kinds of topics were reviewed?

We developed a range of ways of interrogating what partners wanted to know from research in order to define review topics. This involved visiting and revisiting questions like:

• What is the general topic area you are interested in? 
• What is the issue or problem you are trying to address? 
• What do you want to know about this issue? 

But we also explored the potential uses of the evidence through questions like:

• What do you plan to do with the data/report? 
• Who will the data/report be relevant to within and out with your organisation? 
• What difference do you hope that using the data/report will make?

In addition to spending time exploring what people wanted, we also created a scoping stage, where we would look at the literature in general terms, get a sense of its size and scope, and return back to a discussion of what the specific focus should be.

Through the process we looked at: Parenting Teenagers; Transitions to Primary school; How families have changed; and other topics.

What was different about the reviews?

As well as being tailored very specifically to real world practice issues, the reviews have a number of distinctive features:

• They explain how the topic review fits in with the wider literature and which subjects and disciplines it comes from, to give a sense of the ‘evidence landscape’ in which it sits.
• The scoping and final reports are peer reviewed by an academic and a user reviewer who has practical experience and knowledge of the field.
• The reports are edited by a knowledge exchange expert, written in plain language with a short summary. 
• Reviews contain ‘talking points’ that focus on the practical implications of the evidence presented, and aim to move thinking away from the idea that research can tell you what to do, towards the idea that research provides a framework to help decision-making. 
• They are conducted in a shorter time frame with involvement from partners throughout.

How have the reviews been used?

We worked closely with partners to explore how to make the reviews useful. We tried and tested a number of approaches, from large forums, communities of practice, and linking with improvement approaches. They have led to some specific actions, for example:

• In West Lothian a review of transitions to primary school was used to test and embed new approaches to supporting children and families.
• One of the partners from the About Families programme used the evidence to develop new ways of including parents in the design and delivery of services. 
• In What Works Scotland a review of partnership working has been used by local authorities to reflect on and improve the effectiveness of partnerships for public service delivery.

What next?

The Evidence Bank review process has been taken into What Works Scotland and is being used there for a number of reviews. 

Five tips for getting knowledge into action

This post, written by CRFR co-director Sarah Morton, was originally published on the Knowledge Network for Applied Education Research, (KNAER)/Réseau d’échange des connaissances pour la recherche appliquée en éducation (RECRAE) blog.

I think we are at a good time in the knowledge mobilisation field. We have built a body of research that explains a lot about what helps and hinders knowledge getting used to aid decision making in policy and practice. (see Oliver 2014). We are developing rewards and incentives to help academics get research out of the academy (e.g http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/innovation/policies/), and we are at least paying lip service to the idea that policy and practice should be informed by the latest evidence (KNAER is a good example).

Despite this, there are still many pitfalls along the way, and it is often easier to identify where things went wrong rather than success stories. The five tips I have identified below will not surprise many readers of this blog, and yet they are often the pitfalls that I see in practice. I’d really welcome any comments from readers about whether these are issues that you see in your practice, if I have missed something major, or if you disagree completely!

Five tips for getting knowledge into action:

1. Plan ahead

Any good project or process involves careful planning, but how often is evidence-use included in the plan? If researchers want their research to have impact, a well-planned user engagement and KMb strategies have been shown to be effective (http://www.esrc.ac.uk/files/research/evaluation-and-impact/taking-stock-a-summary-of-esrc-s-work-to-evaluate-the-impact-of-research-on-policy-and-practice/). On the policy or practice side, valuing evidence, showing leadership and embedding evidence into organisational practices are all key.

So what would a planned evidence use process look like? For those from policy or practice it might consider how evidence will frame any project or development (http://www.crfr.ac.uk/assets/CRFR_ESS_IS_Evidence_base_briefing.pdf) , how it will be considered and built on, what will be done when people don’t agree on what the evidence says, and how evidence will be accessed, analysed and interpreted. For research teams and partners it would consider who will be engaged and involved, what methods are best for engaging stakeholders and how the research might contribute to change. This needs to move beyond simple ideas of making research accessible, into more complex and process focussed projects. (I have written about this much more extensively here http://rev.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/4/405.abstract)

2. Get the right people round the table

In our evidence to action projects About Families (http://www.crfr.ac.uk/projects/current-projects/about-families/) and the Evidence Request Bank (http://www.crfr.ac.uk/projects/current-projects/evidencebank) we learnt a lot about who is involved in evidence-use processes. Like others taking a systems-thinking approach (e.g. Best and Holmes 2010) we believe that it is essential to include a range of key actors in any knowledge mobilisation process. This would include considering the skills mix of any team in accessing, interpreting and animating evidence of different types. Any systems change also needs to include the perspectives of all key players within the system. Depending on the size of the change project these views might be represented in person, or through consultation of various kinds.

3. Have the conversation

Often the starting point for evidence use projects is the evidence itself, but there are a variety of discussions and framings that are essential for evidence to action. What is evidence needed for? What kinds of evidence might be useful? How will they be interpreted? How will evidence inform change processes? Who needs to be involved? Research doesn’t speak for itself so relationships are key to evidence to action. Effective facilitation of knowledge mobilisation needs an ongoing sense of open dialogue, regular revisiting of planned aims, interrogation of context, and keeping the conversation going about the usefulness and relevance of evidence. We worked with Research Impact (http://researchimpact.ca/) and NCCPE (https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/) to develop a manifesto for partnership research that can help frame some of this conversation http://www.crfr.ac.uk/manifesto-for-partnership-research/.

4. Focus on the process

Using evidence is not a one-off event, but an ongoing process. If people feel they have ‘done’ knowledge mobilisation then they are missing a trick. Using and reusing evidence, checking as programmes develop, and building up more evidence as events unfold are all essential parts of successful knowledge mobilisation. An ongoing focus on the processes can open up new opportunities, ensure ground is not lost, help address conflict and tension, and assess changing contexts and their implications for KMb. Overall a focus on processes helps to ensure knowledge mobilisation continues to be as effective and relevant as it can be.

5. Learn, evaluate, review

I said in the opening of this blog that we are in a good place in terms of understanding barriers and facilitators to knowledge mobilisation (although a recent review is opening up this conversation http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/using-evidence-what-works). We are in a less clear place about what strategies and methods are most effective in which circumstances (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK299400/). As a community of knowledge mobilisers we need to develop evaluation methods, reflect more deeply and write up what we find out. My own approach to this has been published here http://rev.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/4/405.abstract. Every project needs a learning, review and evaluation process, even if on a simple team scale. As the field matures this will be essential in honing the craft, creating training programmes and developing the most effective strategies.


So those are my five tips for getting knowledge into action. How do they resonate with your own experience? What might you add? What resources do you use? I look forward to continuing the conversation: leave a comment below or find us on Twitter @CRFRtweets.

----
Best, A. and B. Holmes (2010). "Systems thinking, knowledge and action: towards better models and methods." Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice 6: 145-159.

Evaluating the Young Mothers’ Service using contribution analysis: lessons learned

From 2014 to 2015, CRFR's co-director Sarah Morton and PhD student Cara Blaisdell worked with West Lothian Council’s Early Intervention Team to develop a framework for evaluating their suite of services, using contribution analysis. In this blog post, Cara reflects on their work with one of these services - the Young Mothers’ Service. This is a keyworking programme in West Lothian that supports pregnant and parenting women under the age of 25.

What is contribution analysis?

In a contribution analysis approach, evaluators identify the outcome that a service hopes to improve, and develop a ‘theory of change’ about how the service will bring about that improvement (Better Evaluation 2015). This theory is expressed visually, in the form of a results chain showing how each stage of the project links to the next. Our CRFR briefing on the project goes into more detail about how we used contribution analysis in this evaluation. Other resources on contribution analysis are linked to at the end of this post.

 

What were the results of the evaluation?

The evaluation showed positive results about how the keyworkers supported the young women. Feedback from young mothers indicated that they found their keyworkers supportive and had improved confidence:

‘They took everything I was going through into consideration.’

‘I’m very much more confident by myself and all the support I needed was met’.

‘Don’t think I’d be where I am today without my keyworker’s help. Thanks a lot!’

Other results from the evaluation showed:

• A high level of take-up of the service, with only one young mother declining when the service was offered 
• Young mothers experienced reduced depression and anxiety 
• 10 children removed from the Child Protection Register 
• Mothers were more aware of support that was available to them—for example, help with accessing benefit entitlements, help with finding a secure place to live, or attending local parenting groups for peer support 
• Eight mothers were supported to enter full-time employment, with 14 others working toward this goal
• All young mothers were approached about experiences of domestic and sexual abuse—revealing a 75% prevalence rate. Support was offered in partnership with the Domestic and Sexual Assault Team.

 

What did we learn about using contribution analysis?

• Working collaboratively with keyworkers and the service manager put the emphasis on learning through evaluation, rather than external judgement.  
• The service manager and keyworkers said that the evaluation prompted useful reflections about their work.  
• Training in contribution analysis and ongoing support were important. 
• Collecting quantitative data was straightforward, but it was more challenging to compile qualitative data in a systematic way. 
• We needed to work within the constraints of high workloads. 
• We needed to offer multiple routes for service users to give feedback, including finding ways to take into account the informal feedback that arose from relationships between young mothers and keyworkers.

For more about this evaluation, and further reflections on what we learned about using contribution analysis, see CRFR Briefing 79: Evaluating the Young Mothers’ Service using contribution analysis: lessons learned.

Additional (open access) resources about contribution analysis: John Mayne, who developed the approach, has written a short briefing about contribution analysis. Sarah Morton, who has developed a specialism in contribution analysis at CRFR, has spoken and blogged about her experience with the approach. There are also useful literature reviews available from Better Evaluation and IRISS.

Using research to influence family services and policies: issues and challenges

Today Policy Press announced that the number 1 spot on Families Societies and Relationships' top downloaded papers for 2015 is occupied by 'Using research to influence family services and policies: issues and challenges' by CRFR co-director Sarah Morton and colleagues Sandra Nutley (Director of the Research Unit for Research Utilisation) and David Phipps (Executive Director - Research & Innovation Services. York University, Canada). Policy Press have opened access to this for the month of February, along with the other top ten articles.

You can read the original blog that accompanied the publication of the article here: CRFR Blog: Using research to influence family services and policies

Partnerships for Impact- making research partnerships work

The Centre for Research on Families and Relationships in consultation with ResearchImpact in Canada and the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) have developed a Manifesto for Partnerships between Universities and Non-academics. Here Executive Director Sarah Morton explains what’s in the manifesto and how it can be used.

There is broad agreement amongst research funders in the UK (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/pe/embedding/) that if academics work more closely with partners from outside the academy their work is more likely to have impact. It helps to embed research in real world issues, creates a group of willing and ready stakeholders, linked to wider networks and can help academics learn about the kind of language and methods required for effective take-up of research. At CRFR we often work together with range of public and third sector partners. We wanted to draw together what we have learned from this and make it more widely available. A partnership manifesto was the way we decided to do this.


Where did the manifesto come from?

In my own research (Creating research impact: the roles of research users in interactive research mobilisation) I investigated partnership and found that there were many ways in which CRFR working in partnership with ChildLine Scotland had led to the impact of that research. I presented these findings about impact to the Scottish Third Sector Research Forum in 2014, and the level of interest led to the idea for a manifesto for partnership research.

Findings from my research were discussed at a workshop at the NCCPE national conference in 2014, with a range of experienced researchers and KE professionals adding their experience. It was then discussed by the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Community of Practice and the ResearchImpact network in Canada:

"At ResearchImpact we were happy to be invited to collaborate on the Manifesto." says David Phipps, Executive Director, Research & Innovation Services, York University, Canada. "We shared it among our members who provided feedback to Sarah and her CRFR team. Working closely with partners creates the conditions for research to have an impact beyond the academy. The manifesto provides guidance and tips to help support community-campus collaborations."

The final version has taken on board all comments received and we are confident it is based on the most recent research and informed by the key experts in this field.


What is in the partnership manifesto?

The manifesto takes a process approach to thinking about partnership. It looks at identifying partners, and then goes through the stages of partnership research: starting partnerships, developing funding bids, developing partnerships, and sharing research findings. Advice includes being explicit about what both sides in a partnership can gain, and what commitment is needed, recognising knowledge and resources, and being clear about the difference between research, evaluation and commissioning. A few final comments suggest the need to choose partners carefully where possible, create spaces to reflect on what is and isn’t working, and to include impact assessment so that everyone can show what difference is being made.


How can the partnership manifesto be used?

We hope that the manifesto will provide a useful tool for people interested in research partnerships, whether from third or public sector organisations, or researchers themselves. Whatever stage of partnership people are in, we imagine the manifesto being a useful tool for discussion, development and reflection during partnership research. It can be a means of ensuring everyone is on the same page, by setting out key considerations for open discussion. When partnerships are not going well it might be a tool for reflecting together or separately on what the issues are and how they might be addressed.

Download a copy of the partnership manifesto

Progressing research impact – a ‘contributions’ approach

Sarah Morton has been working in knowledge exchange since 2001 and has recently published a framework for assessing research impact based on contribution analysis. Here she talks about how her approach not only provide impact analysis, but helps improve knowledge exchange with a focus on making a difference for people and communities. http://rev.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/4/405

My interest in assessing research impact rose from working on getting evidence into action. With colleagues here at the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (www.crfr.ac.uk) over the last 15 years I have explored how to make research accessible, useable and meaningful to those working with children and families, or making policy on their behalf. Knowing whether or not we were making any difference was a logical extension from that work.

We have a small team of KE professionals working closely with our research team at CRFR. We have worked around the knowledge exchange agenda through an artist in residence (Levehulme), a three year project working with the voluntary sector to try to close the knowledge to action gap, a six year contract working closely with analysts in the Scottish Government, a dissemination post attached to the Growing up in Scotland (http://growingupinscotland.org.uk/) study, as well as well-planned programmes of engagement and dissemination for each of our research projects. I became interested in impact assessment because I wanted to know more about if we were making a difference, and if so, in what ways.

But assessing the impact of research on policy and practice is not easy. Our approach at CRFR recognises that research users are not passive recipients of knowledge, but that they engage with research from their own perspective, and that complex relationships and networks of researchers and research users are often channels through which research is communicated, debated, utilised, reworked, reused and developed. To understand impact we need to consider changes in policy and practice, changes in people’s knowledge and understanding of an issue, as well as the broad range of potential areas of influence, all highly context dependent. All of these factors make understanding and assessing research impact difficult, as I discuss in more detail in my paper.

I was delighted to be introduced to Contribution Analysis by Erica Wimbush, then Head of Evaluation at NHS Health Scotland (http://www.healthscotland.com/), on a visiting scholarship to the University. Many things about it seemed to make sense for research impact:

• A focus on who is engaged and involved, in what ways, and the learning needed to underpin change.
• The concept of ‘contribution’ is more appropriate for research which cannot cause change on its own, but need to be facilitated by a receptive environment and the actions of change agents
• A way of linking activities to wider outcomes, with a focus on processes, to create a strong story of how impact occurs.

I used this approach to develop the Research Contribution Framework, within a study that looked at what research impact was and how it happened. (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ep/2015/00000011/00000001/art00004) Since developing it we used it in various ways, including with CRFR’s research, ESRC genomics investments, a participatory research programme at the University of Leicester (http://www.crfr.ac.uk/briefing-assessing-research-impact/), as the basis of a four star REF impact case study (http://impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/CaseStudy.aspx?Id=23984) and to plan impact for the ESRC/MOD Future Reserves Programmes (http://www.future-reserves-research.ac.uk/).

At is core the framework sets out a pathway to impact, assessing for risks and assumptions and gathering evidence to show that it is robust. It can be used to plan and assess knowledge exchange as you go, retrospectively to assess impact, or in combination. It is highly adaptable to different timescales and contexts. It works best as a tool for teams, ideally including research users, to plan and align activities that have the most chance of really making a difference to communities and people. At its most simple it breaks down impact into three processes:

• Research uptake: research users have engaged with research: they have read a briefing, attended a conference or seminar, were research partners, were involved in advising and shaping the research project in some way, or engaged in some other kind of activity which means they know the research exists.
• Research use: research users act upon research, discuss it, pass it on to others, adapt it to context, present findings, use it to inform policy, or practice developments.
• Research impact: changes in awareness, knowledge and understanding, ideas, attitudes and perceptions, and policy and practice as a result of research

By thinking through these processes, a pathway with potential measures can be set out:

So at CRFR we now work with research teams or advisory groups to set out this kind of pathway for all of our new projects. The more perspectives, views and knowledge about the context for impact the easier it is to explore. We use this framework to help plan our KE activities, and we track as we go, allowing us to assess effectiveness early on, and adapt when approaches don’t seem to be working. We can see the impact story unfold in different ways, and if unexpected impacts occur, incorporate these into our pathway. Some of the tools we use for doing that are on our website (http://www.crfr.ac.uk/using-research/knowledge-exchange-training-and-resources/).

This approach sets out a linear pathway to impact, but this does not imply that research uptake, use and impact happens in a linear way. There may be several threads running through an impact story at different timescales, and looping back and forth between the categories. This is discussed and set out in the paper in more detail.

What’s great about working in this way, is that it helps to focus on why carry out KE activities, who they will engage and how, what they need to do differently for change to occur. It can help identify partners and steer resources towards where they can be most effective. Most of all it is usually an enjoyable way of getting teams together to explore what difference they might make through research and knowledge exchange.

Using research to influence family services and policies

CRFR co-director Sarah Morton and colleagues Sandra Nutley (Director of the Research Unit for Research Utilisation, www.ruru.ac.uk) and David Phipps (Director of Research Servics & Knowledge Exchange at York University, Canada) offer seven lessons, and associated challenges, to improve how research is used in policy and practice in a recent article in the new journal Families Societies and Relationships.

1.    Set realistic ambitions and expectations: Research is one form of knowledge that policy makers and practitioners will be using, but it is rare for research to have the definitive word.

2.    Improve research strategies to ensure they address relevant issues and expand our knowledge base rather than unwittingly replicate existing studies. Reviewing research and evaluation processes helps to ensure that research responds to relevant issues and address the main knowledge gaps.

3.    Shape - as well as respond to - policy and practice debates: Take up opportunities to influence policy and practice debates when they appear, - rather than waiting for opportunities to open up, work with advocacy organisations to raise issues of concern and get debates going.

4.    Create dialogue around research by pulling together different perspectives: Research on its own does not create change, but it can influence it. Encourage dialogues between people that recognises research needs to interact with practice experience and tacit knowledge.

5.    Recognise the role of dedicated knowledge broker organisations and networks: There are increasing numbers of knowledge broker organisations and networks who can help to facilitate the creation, sharing and application of research-based knowledge.

6.    Target multiple audiences to increase the reach and impact of your message: Disseminate research findings into wider political and public debate, alongside more targeted approaches. This might be targeting influential people, participating in media debates, speaking at policy and practice conferences and seminars or responding to consultation processes.

7.    Evaluate, learn, improve: Knowledge exchange is still an immature discipline; only through improved evaluation and learning will our understanding of effective strategies develop over time.

Don’t forget that challenges remain:

• Partnerships and collaborative approaches often lead of increased research use and impact, but further investigation is needed into the effects of such relationships on the whole research agenda.
• Excitement in using communication technologies and online tools can override the purpose of the communication and the needs of the audience. Evaluation is needed to determine online communication creates meaningful interactions.
• Creativity and flexibility will become more important in ensuring social research is used in times of shrinking budgets and service cuts.
• While we are better at sharing evidence, further work is needed on improving the knowledge to action process.
• There needs to be better recognition of the role and skills of knowledge brokering and other knowledge exchange support activities.
• Methods for better planning and evaluation of activities will only enhance the achievements in knowledge exchange practice already made.

We would like to thank editors of Families, Relationships and Societies, for their permission to reproduce key points from the journal article in this blog.

Please read our briefing, Knowledge Exchange at CRFR: past, present and future, for more information on the CRFR approach to knowledge exchange.

Families, Relationships and Societies, issue 2

Eagerly awaited by many of us at CRFR, issue 2 of Families, Relationships and Societies has just been published. Many of the articles draw on the rich accounts of qualitative research, and themes of relationships and parenting dominate.

Access to the journal is free for 2012 by emailing tpp-frs-trial@bristol.ac.uk.

Taking the relationships theme, Julie Carter explores theories of commitment from a female perspective in her interviews with young women aged 19-30 years. Lester Coleman and colleagues outline an academic and voluntary sector collaboration seeking to enhance relationship support for 'mixed' couples and families. And lastly, Ciara O'Dwyer and colleagues are interested in how grandparents cope with relationship breakdown among their adult children.

Parenting is another strong theme. Rhiannon Evans and Sally Holland make an important contribution by positioning their research on child protection within the context of 'troublesome' families - policy areas which are typically dealt with seperately. The authors suggest that many protective activities are carried out by communities labelled as 'troublesome'. Issues of child safety are similarly picked up in research by Anna Conolly and Jenny Parkes. Their work has gathered the experienes of young people's living in areas affected by high youth crime in relation to their parents' strategies to keep them safe.

Jeni Harden and colleagues present a very different aspect of parenting, exploring how parents negotiate paid work and care responsibilities. The authors emphasise the inevitable flexibility that emerges in boundaries between work and home, for example in relation to how time is managed and negotiated.

Sandra Cunning and colleagues shift the focus to evaluation, presenting a case-study of a Canadian mental health agency where evidence-based practices were implemented as part of a significant organsiational change process.

While Artur Steinerowski and Mike Woolvin present findings from an action research project in rural Scotland to reflect on the challenges and opportunities to support older people to establish social enterprises.

The Open Space article this month is from our own Sarah Morton and close collaborators David Phipps and Sandra Nutley to ask how research can be used to influence family services and policies. The article begins by outlining the growth in academic understanding of reserach use and offers some emerging lessons about reserach use can be improved. It continues by relating experiences of CRFR's work over the last 10 years and also experiences from the Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) Unit at York University in Toronto, Canada.

 

Editorial is by Brid Featherstone & Tess Ridge.

Visit the contents page by clicking here to access all the articles.