Building knowledge for policy and practice based on service user and carer experiences: A case study of Scottish adult safeguarding research

Fiona Sherwood-Johnson,Kathryn Mackay

doi:10.1177/1468017320952047

Abstract

Summary This article presents Scottish adult safeguarding as a case study to illuminate some challenges of building knowledge for policy and practice based on service user and carer voices. It draws on five of our own research projects that have evaluated implementation of Scottish adult safeguarding legislation and/or asked more exploratory questions about risk, safety and support. Findings We show how practical and ethical issues limited our more evaluative lines of inquiry. We then show how increasingly participative approaches led to studies that were more accessible and that connected more deeply with service users’ and carers' lives, but that also faced greater challenges in the translation of their findings back into the policy and/or practice environment. Applications We conclude with an argument for ongoing dialogue between policy-makers, professionals, service users and carers, researchers, educators and students about knowledge, its different forms and sources, its generation and its use.

Highlights

Adult safeguarding has been the subject of legislation for more than 10 years, and of policy for more than 20 years across the UK
This article offers Scottish adult safeguarding as a case study to illuminate some challenges of building knowledge for policy and practice based on service user and carer voices
We have explored a number of research questions which concern adult safeguarding in a broader sense

Summary

Introduction

Adult safeguarding has been the subject of legislation for more than 10 years, and of policy for more than 20 years across the UK. Approaches that have emerged since the 1990s can be thought of as falling along a continuum between emancipatory research (Oliver, 2009), where disabled people, or other defined groups, fully control the means of research production, and traditional methodologies where social scientists are in control and participants are viewed as passive subjects to be studied (Cossar & Neil, 2015) Between these two poles lie various types of participatory methods that aim to bring together professional researchers and service users, carers or other groups, to explore a concern and seek change. We do not align ourselves with these approaches, and important messages from studies 2 and 4 consolidated our awareness of other ways of knowing

Methodology and methods

Sherwood-Johnson

Limitations

Conclusions