Despite an extensive literature, there is surprisingly little research about what social workers do in their day to day practice. This body of published work, supported by critical review, argues that we need to hear, and learn from, practitioner voices if we are to comprehend the breadth, challenges and potential of social work practice. It contributes to a steadily expanding field of research that is exploring the hidden, frequently misunderstood, and often negatively perceived, world of everyday practice. By making social work more visible, we open up opportunities for students, social workers, other professionals and the public to learn about the profession's work by engaging with the live challenges and dilemmas encountered by practitioners. My research examines the actual work of social work by analysing practitioner narratives to reveal the ways in which social workers recount, reflect on and learn from direct work with service users and their families. Most of the research is informed by a strengths-based, narrative perspective, the critical best practice approach. It draws on qualitative methods, consistent with a social constructionist stance that recognises the contingency of practice with its multiple subjectivities, uncertainties, contested viewpoints and constant flux. Three main themes are explored: social workers' use of knowledge, their decision-making and judgement when services users are at risk of harm, or pose a risk to others, and the integration of practice and theory in a student practice placement. I also report on two related inquiries, one focusing on the experience of co-publication with practitioners, and the other on social workers' use of self in practice. The notion of 'best' practice is found, inevitably, to be fraught with ambiguity, raising important questions about the criteria on which judgements about 'good' practice can be made, and who is entitled to make them. My review tackles these and other theoretical, methodological and ethical issues that I encountered during the research. An essential thread that runs through all the research findings is the need for a critical, reflexive approach to everyday practice that recognises the situated, and often contradictory, nature of voice and of the practices described. Taken together, the research findings stress the centrality of practitioner capabilities such as relationship building, critical reflection, skilful use of self, respectful authority, curiosity, creativity and the ability to combine a range of different forms of knowledge in imaginative and flexible ways. They collectively make a strong case for valuing and learning from direct access to practitioners' experiences of practice. The research, conducted in a range of UK contexts, identifies how and why social workers' voices continue to fail to be heard, and suggests a number of ways of tackling gaps in our understanding. From a personal point of view, the research is also my own story of learning about doing research into my profession over the last ten years, and of seeking to share and use the findings to improve social work practice and make a difference to people who use social work services, their friends, families and communities.

The Unsettled Object is an installational art project that considers the instability of objects in regards to their assembly, classification, and presentation, underpinned by the context of the museum and supported by Michel Foucault’s notion of the classificatory grids he discusses in The Order of Things: an archaeology of the Human Sciences. (Foucault,1970) The artefacts are being fabricated as a response to the corporeal body-on-display; its surfaces, spaces and volumes. An underlying notion of temporality and mutability is indicated in the processes of making, the objects, material responsiveness and the devices employed in the presentation of the work.

The Unsettled Object is an installational art project that considers the instability of objects in regards to their assembly, classification, and presentation, underpinned by the context of the museum and supported by Michel Foucault’s notion of the classificatory grids he discusses in The Order of Things: an archaeology of the Human Sciences. (Foucault,1970) The artefacts are being fabricated as a response to the corporeal body-on-display; its surfaces, spaces and volumes. An underlying notion of temporality and mutability is indicated in the processes of making, the objects, material responsiveness and the devices employed in the presentation of the work.

This thesis is a practice-led investigation into a translocal approach to dialogue-based art. The research has been undertaken through the practice of the ‘artist/academic’, drawing on my professional experience in artistic research, academic leadership and teaching, each informing my methods and findings. The problem which emerged through the practice is how to devise an approach to dialogue-based art that is responsive to twenty-first century social relations and telecommunications and attendant to the politics of mobility that constrain and control human movement. The research develops and tests out the application of ideas from the interdisciplinary field of translocality to the practice of dialogue-based art through the production of three collaborative projects. I argue that the practice of dialogue-based art, when informed by translocality, is better placed to critically reflect and act upon the conditions of contemporary life within networked and globalised society. In Translocal Geographies: Spaces, Places and Connections (2011) Brickell and Datta argue for a multi-scalar understanding of translocality beyond the discourse of national borders and international migrations, deploying the term as an expression of “simultaneous situatedness across different locales” (2011: 4). Viewed this way, the theory and practice of translocality presents a framework to understand the activities and goals of artists and artist-led networks seeking to bridge difference towards shared spaces of meaning. As the translocal research perspective develops towards ideas of local-to-local connectivities and a discourse of circulations and transfers, so translocality as applied to dialogue-based art proposes an expanded understanding of dialogue-based art across spatial, temporal and cultural distance. Through three practice-based projects, QR Code Project, Let Me Tell You The Story Of My Neighbour and #3CityLink, presented within the thesis as case studies, the research reveals a set of characteristics that articulate a translocal approach to dialogue-based art. I argue that this approach enables the ‘translocal artist’ to draw on multiple modes of dialogue-based practice, contributing to understandings of ‘simultaneous situatedness’ within the translocal research perspective.

This research project is aimed at creative practitioners in art and design who choose to engage in postgraduate research and who recognise narrative to be an important aspect of their work. While the goal of narratology has been explicitly declared as an interest in understanding narrative in all its forms, this project responded to a perceived absence of art and design centred perspectives in the general literature on narrative. A general attitude has developed throughout the course of the twentieth century resulting in a view that narrative has become a dead issue for contemporary practitioners. Findings from the investigations conducted as part of this project demonstrate a contrary view and show that definitions of narrative tend to be weak unless anchored in specific practices or disciplines. The lack of scholarship to support contemporary art and design research practitioners produces a problem by giving the false impression that narrative is largely irrelevant to practice. It also inhibits new scholarship when what currently exists is poorly categorised. The research question asks how it is possible to support the creative practitioner doing postgraduate research to better articulate their position on narrative in a way that contributes to scholarship in the arts and consequently to knowledge about narrative in general. The thesis argues that approaches to narrative traditionally associated with the discussion of art continue to be relevant today but only account for practice in a marginalised way. It posits that theorisation of narrative in the social sciences provides additional opportunities for creative arts practitioners. In psychology, sociology and anthropology the focus has tended towards localised or personal narrative in accordance with the disciplinary interests in those fields. If small stories, in contrast to the great narratives of history or literary art, can be regarded as the prototype of narrative, then artists can draw on other academic resources which better reflect their own disciplinary interests. Having established narrative to be more relevant than it might otherwise appear in the existing traditional scholarship, the thesis proceeds to make use of my practice as a case demonstrating narrative possibilities to be considered in relation to the work of practicing artists. Since my work operates across fields of art and design it was necessary to use a mix of methods to reveal the understanding of narrative in the different cases. Finally, the thesis proposes a narrative framework which categorises narrative in creative practice in five classes which incorporate the work, its reception, and the social space in which it is experienced. In addition, the practitioner's perspective is a distinct class. The purpose of the framework is not to describe narrative in all the forms that could ever be imagined by creative practitioners. Instead it offers a way of thinking about narrative that is derived from practice and structured relative to theories traditionally used to discuss narrative and art.

This study promotes the notion that it is important for the family to be treated as a unit. It highlights the importance of parents understanding and respecting their children as unique human beings instead of regarding them as „carbon copies‟ of themselves. The study further stresses the importance of parents being included as important variables within the therapeutic process with a child. For parents to understand and recognise their child‟s needs, knowledge of the child‟s temperament is required. Knowledge of the nature of temperament leads to parents having a better understanding of their children‟s behaviour and consequently fewer frustrations within the parent-child interaction arise. The study aimed to utilise a practice-based ecometric model to assess temperament and preference functions that assist in enhancing the parent-child interaction. In order to address the aim of study, the practice-based ecometric model needed to include a temperament sorter as a tool to obtain information regarding temperament and preference functions. However, in practice there is no instrument/tool or temperament sorter to determine temperament and preference functions in children that may be used by professionals, such as social workers, who are not trained as psychologists. The design and development (D&D) model was considered an appropriate design for this study because it lends itself to the use of a multi-phase research approach. During Phase 1 the research problem was analysed and the project was planned accordingly. A literature study was undertaken during Phase 2 to explore and describe the different components required within a practice-based ecometric model that assesses temperament and preference functions, as well as the different dimensions required within the temperament sorter. Phase 2 was concluded after the researcher explored how the ecometric perspective could contribute to the development of an ecometric temperament sorter. Phase 3, Step 1 and Phase 4, Steps 1-3 involved a quantitative process where item analysis of the prototype was explored with the assistance of a panel of experts and designed using the Delphi method. The prototype temperament sorter was pilot tested for reliability using equivalent or parallel form reliability. To assess if the designed temperament sorter, when used within the practice-based ecometric model, assisted in enhancing the parent-child interaction, the one-group pre-test post-test design was followed during Phase 5, Steps 1-2. Qualitative data were obtained from parents through pre-test semi-structured interviews. Through the completion of the designed temperament sorter, quantitative data were obtained regarding the temperament and preference functions of participating children. During a feedback session, each child‟s temperament and preference functions were qualitatively explained to parents. In order to give the parents ample time to rethink and familiarise themselves practically with the given information, post-test semi-structured interviews with the parents were held four weeks later. The aim was to assess the extent to which the designed temperament sorter contributed to strengthen the parent-child interaction. The designed product successfully assisted in addressing the aim of the study. All the research questions were successfully answered. Dissemination and marketing of a practice-based ecometric model and designed temperament sorter will take place after completion of the research project. / PhD (Social Work), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This study promotes the notion that it is important for the family to be treated as a unit. It highlights the importance of parents understanding and respecting their children as unique human beings instead of regarding them as „carbon copies‟ of themselves. The study further stresses the importance of parents being included as important variables within the therapeutic process with a child. For parents to understand and recognise their child‟s needs, knowledge of the child‟s temperament is required. Knowledge of the nature of temperament leads to parents having a better understanding of their children‟s behaviour and consequently fewer frustrations within the parent-child interaction arise. The study aimed to utilise a practice-based ecometric model to assess temperament and preference functions that assist in enhancing the parent-child interaction. In order to address the aim of study, the practice-based ecometric model needed to include a temperament sorter as a tool to obtain information regarding temperament and preference functions. However, in practice there is no instrument/tool or temperament sorter to determine temperament and preference functions in children that may be used by professionals, such as social workers, who are not trained as psychologists. The design and development (D&D) model was considered an appropriate design for this study because it lends itself to the use of a multi-phase research approach. During Phase 1 the research problem was analysed and the project was planned accordingly. A literature study was undertaken during Phase 2 to explore and describe the different components required within a practice-based ecometric model that assesses temperament and preference functions, as well as the different dimensions required within the temperament sorter. Phase 2 was concluded after the researcher explored how the ecometric perspective could contribute to the development of an ecometric temperament sorter. Phase 3, Step 1 and Phase 4, Steps 1-3 involved a quantitative process where item analysis of the prototype was explored with the assistance of a panel of experts and designed using the Delphi method. The prototype temperament sorter was pilot tested for reliability using equivalent or parallel form reliability. To assess if the designed temperament sorter, when used within the practice-based ecometric model, assisted in enhancing the parent-child interaction, the one-group pre-test post-test design was followed during Phase 5, Steps 1-2. Qualitative data were obtained from parents through pre-test semi-structured interviews. Through the completion of the designed temperament sorter, quantitative data were obtained regarding the temperament and preference functions of participating children. During a feedback session, each child‟s temperament and preference functions were qualitatively explained to parents. In order to give the parents ample time to rethink and familiarise themselves practically with the given information, post-test semi-structured interviews with the parents were held four weeks later. The aim was to assess the extent to which the designed temperament sorter contributed to strengthen the parent-child interaction. The designed product successfully assisted in addressing the aim of the study. All the research questions were successfully answered. Dissemination and marketing of a practice-based ecometric model and designed temperament sorter will take place after completion of the research project. / PhD (Social Work), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Avhandlingen fokuserar på kollaborativt berättande i digitala medier, och tar avstamp i relativt detaljerade beskrivningar av de designprojekt som utgör avhandlingsarbetets ryggrad. Kännetecknande för dessa designprojekt är att de kombinerar fysiska och virtuella rum och/eller flera medieplattformar. Utifrån kritiska läsningar av designval och bruk av de koncept och prototyper som designprojekten utmynnat i presenteras argument för föreslagna "sätt att se" på design av berättande i digitala medier och centrala kvaliteter i miljöer för kollaborativt berättande. Grundläggande är att se berättande som en överenskommelse, som måste springa ur den berättarsituation, den fysiska och sociala verklighet, som utgör en oavvislig del av allt berättande. Denna överenskommelse upprättar ett "rum" för att undersöka och värdera möjlig mänsklig handling, ett rum vars estetiska egenskaper inte kan skiljas från de etiska och politiska frågeställningar som sätts i rörelse av allt berättande. Utifrån detta grundläggande synsätt diskuteras frågan om utformandet av handlingsutrymme i relation till interaktivitet i digitala medier, begrepp som roll, karaktär, samarbete och konflikt samt rytm, poesi och mångtydighet. Argumenten och resonemangen grundas, utöver i den kritiska läsningen av designprojekten, också i en bredare översikt av narrativitetsbegreppets utveckling inom human- och samhällsvetenskaperna de senaste två decennierna samt i en diskussion av teorier, synsätt och vanliga grundantaganden kring berättande i digitala media. Utrymme i avhandlingen ges också åt en kunskapsteoretisk diskussion kring frågan om design som forskning, främst ur ett perspektiv grundat i STS-fältet men också i relation till förda resonemang ifråga om praxisbaserad forskning i allmänhet och designforskning och designteori i synnerhet.

The main purpose of this research is to examine artistic thinking processes from my practical experience as an artist. This thinking process is discussed through my term: 似藝術-art-like in the context of 'practice-based research'. '似藝術-art-like' is an amalgamated form of Mandarin characters with English words; it is both a picture and a word that serves as a temporary conceptual framework that aims to keep possibility open and meaning mobile.' Significantly,似藝術-art-like is addressed through language and artworks together with an attempt to reinterpret the relation between thinking, outcomes of thinking, and the complexity of meaning in relation to art. 似藝術-art-like operates as a temporary conceptual framework for discussing the thinking process and demonstrating the problems and contradictions in art research. This is a practice-based study so that visual and written elements and the structure of the thesis are each approached as a form of 'practice'. In addressing 似藝術-art-like in the written elements of the thesis, a series of stratagems or gambits are employed that attempt to explain or find formulation for the developing thinking process in art research. Each gambit is a form of artifice that serves to demonstrate the pursuit of addressing thinking through language as an impossible task, and functions as a manoeuvre for opening a conversation in understanding the thinking process in art. To facilitate my understanding, I explore my questioning of thinking in relation to Jacques Derrida's supplement and différance, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's rhizome, Mieke Bal's, framing, Susanne Langer's distinction between art and language, and Immanuel Kant's disinterestedness and aesthetic idea. It becomes apparent that no one theory satisfactorily explains what happens; it is too complex. Presentation of the inadequateness and contradictions in my developing process provides an examination of there being no specific answer. As a result, I conclude that utilising written words and artworks in my thinking processes and demonstrating them as physical outcomes is a process of constant confrontation with contradictions. It is a provocation that makes an artist-based researcher/research-based artist, re-think, re-disturb, re-articulate, and re-consider the conceptual frameworks in relation to developing artistic research. Ultimately, this research responds to the problems surrounding the relationship between thinking and the outcomes of thinking and meaning in relation to art. It demonstrates the difficulties and complications for seeking mobile thinking and for exploring the possibilities of artistic research. As a whole, the research points out the complexity of the process in terms of employing thinking through artworks and written words together. This invites a suspension of preconceived concepts and questions what knowledge mightbe in the context of an art enquiry.

Class of 2010 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: To identify and describe practical incentives and barriers for community health center pharmacists in adopting a practice based research network (PBRN) that facilitates sustainable collaboration. METHODS: Directors of pharmacy at Community health centers listed as members of Arizona Association of Community Health Centers (AACHC), with on-site pharmacies, were contacted via telephone. During initial contact an IRB approved script was used to recruit the pharmacy director’s participation, at which time the subject’s disclaimer form was read and an appointment for a future phone interview was scheduled. Phone Interviews were conducted using a standardized questionnaire, and all results were manually recorded on a standardized data collection form. Data collected included, site specific information including the: educational background of the pharmacy director, and his or her perceived inducements and barriers to participating in a pharmacy based PBRN with the University of Arizona. RESULTS: Phone interviews were completed by 8 directors of pharmacy, 4 women (50%) and 4 men (50%). A total of 5 participants (62.5%) had a BS degree, 2 (25%) had PharmD degrees and 1 (12.5%) had both as BS and a PharmD degree. The mean length of time in current position was 5.56 yrs (SD= 4 yrs.). 75% of the participants indicated that they considered working with the University of Arizona (UofA) as an inducement, the same number of participants felt that their staff and practice as a whole would also consider it an inducement. Overall participants indicated that both their personal (75%) and staff‘s (87.5%) motivation to improve the pharmacy profession was considered an inducement, as well as their opportunity for professional growth (75%). All of the participants (100%) indicated they did not have adequate staffing to support research at this time and therefore felt it was a barrier to participation. When asked about resources as a whole, including staff, time and technology 87.5% of the participants felt this was a barrier. Other common barriers were; anticipated time requirements (75%), current schedule/time allowances (75%), staff’s outside commitments (75%). Out of the 8 participants only 2 (25%) are currently participating in PBRNS at this time, 3(37.5%) have research ideas that they are interested in working on, and 3(37.5%) indicated that they were not currently participating nor did they have any current interests. The major themes identified as inducements to participation were patient benefit, time/staffing involvement, and professional growth. CONCLUSIONS: The most common barriers to participating in a PBRN were: working with the UofA, motivation to improve the profession of pharmacy and the opportunity for professional growth. The most common inducements were staffing, current resources, anticipated time requirements, current schedules and outside commitments.