Edinburgh social work academics recognised in knowledge exchange competiton
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University of Edinburgh social work PhD graduate, Dr Mary Mitchell and current PhD student, Ariane Critchley, have achieved success in the 2018 Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange Competition; awarded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science.

Dr Mitchell, won the prestigious Research Impact and Knowledge Exchange Competition 2018, which reflects the growing need for social science research to not only make an original contribution to the academy, but also to make a demonstrable contribution to society and the economy. There were more than 30 submissions, and Mary’s work, drawing upon her doctoral research, focused on “Reimagining Family Group Conferencing ‘Outcomes’”. Mary’s research was supervised by Professor Kay Tisdall and Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh.

Commenting on her award, Mary (pictured, left) said “I am completely delighted to win this prestigious Impact and Knowledge Exchange award. Not only does it recognise the importance of collaboration to ensure research does not just sit on a dusty shelf, but the prize money will make an immediate contribution towards increasing the impact of my research. It will be used to support the development of outcome tools to engage directly with children and families.”

Lesley Cook, Family Group Conference Lead with Children 1st, stated: “Our hope is to use Mary’s research to develop methods of engaging both families and referrers in discussing best hopes for their family group meetings, their feelings about the process afterwards and subsequently the impact of the Family Group Process some time later.  We aim to explore and discuss these tools, to get some feedback about what people think of the methods and how we can apply them in practice in Scotland.”

At the same awards, a current doctoral student, Ariane Critchley (right), was a runner-up in the competition. Ariane’s research concerns a challenging and under-developed area of social work practice: pre-birth child protection. As the awards panel noted: “Ariane has seized opportunities to share findings to influence the development of practice and policy. Her doctoral research will be launched at the Social Work Scotland Conference on June 13 & 14, 2018, sharing themes for organisational development with those in a position to effect change across Scotland.”

Ariane’s recent work builds upon her success in 2016 in securing competitive ESRC Festival of Social Science funding to share early research findings. She recruited a team of fantastic colleagues from both practice and academic backgrounds in this field, from an undergraduate social work student to an established lecturer, taking in 4 different professional affiliations and including front-line practitioners and PhD colleagues. The event sold out was excellently attended and evaluated by participants from a variety of backgrounds. Following this, Ariane secured a commission for an Iriss Insight on pre-birth child protection, reviewed from policy, practice and academic angles.

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Picture (c) University of Edinburgh.