title: Advancing social work practice in the health field: a collaborative research partnership.
abstract: This article describes and analyzes the development of a collaborative research model by one university faculty of social work and 10 health care settings. Established working relationships for educating students were the foundation of a research partnership formed to study questions of mutual interest. This article discusses the developmental stage of the research consortium, including needs assessment, workshop, identification of a common theme and research topic, preliminary funding, and literature review. This stage resulted in the decision to develop and test an instrument to screen for high social risk that would be capable of identifying the need for social work involvement with families to provide effective and efficient management of patients. The Delphi methodology was chosen in the first phase of the research design, and reasons for the choice of this methodology, the results from the two Delphi rounds, and a preliminary screening instrument are presented. Finally, issues in collaboration, such as institutional factors, dynamics of the working group, and leadership roles, are analyzed to identify facilitating features and problematic issues in such partnerships.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bogo
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wells
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abbey
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bergman
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Chandler
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Embleton
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Guirgis
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Huot
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: McNeill
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Prentice
mesh_terms: D000047:Academies and Institutes; D005178:Faculty; D006296:Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D012106:Research; D012307:Risk Factors; D012947:Social Work; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires