Review by Allan Pinches, Consumer Consultant in mental health and Bachelor of Arts in Community Development
[This review was first published in New Paradigm, 2011]
____________________________
“Without changing our patterns of thought we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current patterns of thought.”
- Albert Einstein (Quoted in Ackoff in 2004)
__________________________- Albert Einstein (Quoted in Ackoff in 2004)
Yoland Wadsworth’s new book is her Magnum Opus, as the social research and evaluation “resource person” of choice for thousands of people in their communities.
Wadsworth is an Australian social research and evaluation practitioner, methodology theorist and educator – and author of the bestsellers “Do-It-Yourself Social Research” and “Everyday Evaluation on the Run” – who has put innovative and empowering tools of social inquiry into the hands of many thousands of people in their communities, to help give them a stronger “say” in dealing with community, health and human services organisations.
Wadsworth is an Australian social research and evaluation practitioner, methodology theorist and educator – and author of the bestsellers “Do-It-Yourself Social Research” and “Everyday Evaluation on the Run” – who has put innovative and empowering tools of social inquiry into the hands of many thousands of people in their communities, to help give them a stronger “say” in dealing with community, health and human services organisations.
Wadsworth’s new book, “Building in Research and Evaluation:
This far-reaching and comprehensive book of more than 300 pages, took a decade to write and is described as the Magnum Opus of a busy and distinguished career. Yoland Wadsworth is Adjunct Professor, Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT University, and holds several other posts.
This outstanding work offers a generous feast of practical knowledge and wisdom, drawn from the author’s 38 years as a leading “resource person for others’ later efforts” in practicebased social research, across many sectors and organisations.
Wadsworth writes about her pleasant surprise, in early preparations to this book, in learning about an apparent high level of adoption by researchers and evaluators in many fields of methodologies similar to those she has tested and recommended. However, there were other reports of all-too-many “people centred” conflicts and other problems such as an apparent lack of adherence to an evidence base in human services organisations.
Meanwhile, many innovative projects were being initiated here and there, but often funded as ad hoc short term projects. There was also little evidence of widespread preparations to develop and build in cyclic structures for ongoing social research and evaluation in the running of human services organisations, let alone with humanising ideals.
These and other conundrums set many challenges for the author to study the structures and processes of human services organisations, by envisioning them as “living systems” and working out the benefits that might flow.
Wadsworth’s book has a great deal to offer on many levels. Beyond its functions as a reference work - which reviews and draws upon extensive lessons learned from past projects - there is much which is
While many combinations of “sequences of research cycle questions” are offered, it is worth noting that the foundations are somewhat similar to action research frameworks, which tend to start out straightforward, then are elaborated upon. While there can be many permutations, the basic steps can be summarised:
Observe – Action --> Reflect --> Plan --> Act --> Observe – Action -->
___________________________________________
“What we know in life is only where we have decided to rest with our questioning.”
-- Fran Peavey,
American community activist and proponent of Strategic Questioning
________________________________________
The book deals extensively with “building in a culture of inquiry” -- in organisations and in the community – and in several parts closely examines many structural underpinnings of social research and evaluation, particularly when applied to mental health consumer participation, evaluation, and community-based Participatory Action Research.
There is a powerful exposition of methodological structures in social inquiry, which can inform the reader’s thinking about:
- detailed principles for research and evaluation within complex human service organisations, when viewed as “living systems”;
- sequences and examples of “research cycle questions” which can be creatively harnessed inworking towards “intelligent systems” which could also become self-adjusting; and,
- promotion of the development of more (truly) human services, partly through service providers being encouraged to open up to listen carefully and without flinching to the expressed hurts, unmet needs, and creative thinking of consumers.
There is also a major section which crystallises 10 “exemplars” of substantial projects in which Wadsworth has been involved over a long period in human services settings. But the larger list spanned: health, education, welfare, non-government organisations, local, state and federal government, community groups working with youth, homelessness, disability, community and mental health, health promotion, hospitals, schools, universities, child and family services, the disadvantaged, the excluded, agriculture, environment, Indigenous people with a commercial small business.
Yoland Wadsworth is well known as the social research and evaluation
theorist who worked in collaboration with consumer researcher Merinda Epstein in establishing and leading the Understanding and
Involvement Project at Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital, in 1990–96,
which won awards as a consumer participatory/ staff collaborative
project.
“U & I” (as it became affectionately known) became a training
“U & I” (as it became affectionately known) became a training
ground of many consumer consultants, and ultimately became a major
part of the model for the statewide introduction of consumer consultants in 1996. (See the compendium, “The Essential ‘U & I’”
Wadsworth, in ongoing collaboration with Epstein; VicHealth 2001.)
In “Building in Research and Evaluation…” Wadsworth explains that the U & I project was an attempt to establish and refine processes by which staff and consumers in psychiatric wards could routinely collaborate to research and evaluate of the experiences of consumers, and make the consequent relevant and appropriate changes to the hospital practices. In some ways this was attempting to build back into the system a capacity for reflection and “time enough for understanding.”
These changes could also allow a shift in debate in the mental health field towards the notions of “health, healing and recovery” rather than defaulting, too quickly, to matters of “fear, control and coercion.”
Wadsworth writes: “It wasn’t in the end seeking a ‘new vision’ or a ‘breakthrough formula’ which would leave distancing, ‘othering,’ fears, anxieties, and iatrogenesis as things of the past. In the end we saw how
Such shifts of emphasis can be found within the book’s summary of the U & I model’s 12-component framework summary, explained as placing a premium on such factors as: quality assurance; a two-way consumer-staff dialogue; appropriate and built in forums; utilising dynamic means of culture shift; and multiple and creative means of consumer input, and more.
Wadsworth also continues to espouse the need for “a missing fourth site” – a place for system staff trying to work for change, mirroring “consumer only places” where people share understanding and peer support, and tired and battered people can work on their health growth and development ideas.
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________"Empowerment is all about being treated as self-determining peoples, not client communities."
-- Muriel Bamblett, Self Determination Not Invasion (2008)
Wadsworth’s book carries many little touches of somewhat wry humour, arising naturally as observations from the text and her enjoyment of the powers of language. This is complemented by many cartoons satirising agency-life, quote panels, some key learning tables, sidebars, and stories from the field.
In presenting an overview of “human inquiry for living systems” Wadsworth uses an example of an ordinary learning activity from life – by conjuring up the thoughts, words, and actions of a person who has just learnt to ride a bicycle. This includes lines like:
“Wobble, wobble. Fall off. Go a bit further.
Wobble. Getting the hang of it. Staying on. Go faster, easier, better…”
Wadsworth’s book also provides a valuable participant’s eye overview of the history of research, evaluation and organisational development from the 70s onward, throughout human services and many of the political and bureaucratic processes in operation throughout.
There are also a number of interesting accounts of the history, development, and changing adaptations of many methodologies of social research and evaluation.
