Editorial

Abstract

The article reflects on various papers discussed within the issue. The ten substantive papers in this issue focus on social work research, social work ethics, work with older people, work with people who have a learning disability, family violence and the foster-care of children. While most of the contributors are based in Great Britain, there are also papers from the Republic of Ireland and Sweden. In the first paper, "Practitioner Research: Evidence or Critique?," Ian Shaw draws attention to the volume of practitioner research being undertaken. He suggests that at any one time in Great Britain, there are likely to be more active social work practitioner researchers than mainstream researchers. Tom Wilks explores the potential value of narrative ethics, which have been extensively applied in medicine and nursing, to deliver new insights into the richness and complexity of social work decision making. Wilks focuses on the way in which narrative ethics can be used to bring together two key conceptual strands in social work values. Geraldine MacDonald and Ioannis Kakavelakis report on a randomized controlled study evaluating the effectiveness of a training program for local authority foster-carers.