5.5.2 Critique Of Social Research By The Pillars

Many years ago I was at the launch of research undertaken by a prominent academic institution into the effects of drug misuse within a particularly vulnerable population. This research had cost €60,000.

One of the young men who contributed to the research had died of a drugs overdose between the time of doing the research and the launch. His father accompanied me to the launch and after the speeches and question and answer sessions, at the cup of tea and nibbles, he remarked to me that he was upset that so much money had been spent on the research and that his son, who had contributed to it, had died.

His point was that if the money that had been spent on the research had been available for counselling or other support type work for his son, and others like him, some of them might be alive.

Why someone who has a personal reaction to such research didn’t express that opinion at the question and answer session during the launch, but waited until an informal opportunity presented itself to say it to me illustrates the high-impact-low-noticeability intimidating power of the Pillars.

Nor would I have spoken up in a similar situation. It’s not easy to point out things that arise from how we feel at such top-down events where a passive audience is fed facts and figures by a speaker flying through a power-point presentation up on a podium. Generally, an atmosphere of self-congratulatory bonhomie prevails and offering contrary opinions always has a criticising-the-bride-at-a-wedding sort of feel to it. It’s just not done! But the real truth often leaks out in more informal get-togethers afterwards.

The reason that I mention the above incident is that uncensored views have contributed greatly to my understanding of how some people (many, I would say) in our Focus Group view the world of the Pillars – and  I feel very privileged to have been trusted enough to be the recipient of such opinions.

It gives me no joy to state that since that particular piece of research was launched the conditions – in respect of drug misuse – within the community where the research was done hasn’t changed much for the better.

Long before the statement that began the previous post was made, I was sceptical of social research.

My scepticism arose from an experience that I had when I was a novice street-worker, in the early 1990’s, and we were tasked with supporting young people from 14 to 18 – which was the age group that the Project I worked with at that time was restricted to.

After a short time it became very clear to my colleagues and I that there was a need to support younger children – and their families also.  Following much discussion with community leaders including teachers etc. a Government Department was approached to see if funding could be accessed to set up a programme to improve the prospects of children with high need aged (approx.) between 7 and 13-14.

As it so happened, at that time there was some movement towards this at Government level anyway so we were delighted when we got a positive response.  As we were happily waiting for some news that something would happen (i.e. that a Project of reasonable size employing, perhaps, three or four workers would be set up and would complement what we were doing on the street with the older teens) there came a sudden halt.

Stop………..

We were informed that the need had to be researched before the funding could be allocated!

Researchers then descended upon us to do it. While to be honest my memories of being researched are vague I remember being assured that they spoke with parents of children, teachers, youth workers, counsellors and many practitioners involved and after all that produced a report.

Eventually, (this was about 12 months later) one worker was recruited – to work on her own – to address the issue. The part that I remember most was that she was mandated to work only within the education system – and the parameters of her work were determined by the local primary school.

Despite her best efforts the situation did not improve that much and a good few of the children (I knew many of them) for whom, to my mind anyway, the Project had been intended in the first place did not fit the criteria for involvement and they dropped out of school anyway.

This was exactly the opposite of what was intended.

One criteria for involvement was that the child’s parent or parents would have to be involved in some school activity or other. As parents were from the Focus Group and had many of the characteristics that I described earlier, they did not feel too comfortable in the school environment. The school, it has to be said, made an effort too, but the cultural divide was too great.

I know at least two young boys who were excluded from that venture with tragic consequences for both in their teens.

I have no idea what the research to kick-start the Project cost but I am sure that I and my colleagues could have done it with a few concerned parents (probably mothers to be honest – many fathers were absent, some in prison) for far lower cost in a few weeks and produced recommendations that would have been far more meaningful.

I do not state that I am right here – but that is what I believe.

Furthermore, if the Project (and support packages for children) had had the families at the centre rather than the school I am sure that the outcomes would have been far better. 

Finally, it upset me a little that professional researchers (whether they were from academia or not – I can’t remember) got money to produce a report to describe a need that was dogs-in-the-street obvious to any practitioner while children suffered for 12-18 months – and thereafter were excluded.

I said in the Introduction that I suffer from a rare condition which is difficult to identify, not to mention cure – a mixture of idealism and naivety.

And when I was a young street-worker in the early-1990’s I was very naïve.

Around that time legislation was brought in which stated that all young people up to the age of 18 would be considered to be children and all the safeguards that applied to younger children would be applied to them also.  This had been a grey area for many years.  (In fact, I remember a boy of 15 serving a sentence in Limerick adult prison around that time – and no-one seemed to have a problem with it).

My co-workers and I were mandated to go on training days, seminars etc. to open our eyes to this new world of child protection and we were enthused by the lectures from principal social workers and academics about the dangers of neglect, emotional abuse etc. on children.

Because the Health Board and Department of Health placed so much emphasis on the necessity to protect children I believed that they actually meant it!

An enthusiastic colleague of mine suggested to me that, in the light of all the training and seminars etc., we’d do some local research on the number of children who were homeless in the area where we were doing our streetwork.  I agreed wholeheartedly and we identified about 6 (if my memory serves me right) teenagers, all male, of ages 15-17, who were either sleeping rough or squatting with friends in sheds or burnt out houses.

We then wrote what was, admittedly, a not-very-academic report, and I sent it straight to a high up child protection officer in what was then the Health Board. Now I was never a great fan of protocols and procedures – sometimes these issues just seem too urgent – and this was one of those, and sometimes I simply forget.

Surely, we thought, we’d get a response to this most serious child protection issue.  Surely someone would at least have a chat with us about what our opinions were on what might be needed to be done to support families and children who found themselves in this situation.  (As I said – I was a novice street-worker).

I heard nothing back for a while.  I was just on the point of enquiring if they received my letter + report (there were no emails in those days) when I was summoned to some kind of a hearing on foot of a letter that my Board of Management had received. I went to the meeting thinking that, at last, we’d get some action on this.

However, rather than the issue of children sleeping rough being discussed, I was given a lecture on how inadvisable it was to do unscientific studies that couldn’t be rigorously proven and verified with a control group (or something like that) and many other statistical tools that should be used that I hadn’t used.

I was then informed most unequivocally, that I was never to do such research again without authorisation – when the proper researchers would be engaged if funding was available from the Department of Health to do same.

I went away from the meeting with my wings fairly neatly clipped – actually, the whole thing felt like a disciplinary. It goes without saying that absolutely nothing was done about the homeless teenagers afterwards.

But ……….. all was not lost.

I learned an invaluable lesson about the priorities of the system, and how much it really cares.  And this, actually, was the first time that I began forming ideas about the role of the entities that I would later call the Pillars!

From quite a lot of reading that I have done over many years, conferences that I have been to and launches I have attended etc. I find that quite a lot of social research (though – I stress, not all) can contain a significant amount of repetition of research done previously.

Most bookshelves in workplaces in organisations that support families in distress contain many reports on issues like troubled families, children growing up in disadvantaged communities, effects on children of addiction, domestic violence, effects of imprisonment on families and children and many more similar topics all saying more or less the same thing, and all coming to the same conclusions.

In fact, I challenge any of you who have worked in this field for many years to meet 3-4 colleagues who are equally experienced, committed, reflective, and compassionate, and take a half day simply brainstorming and then another half day collating what you have written down about any one of the above subjects.

I’ll bet that you would come up with the same essential conclusions, (and probably be able to come up with some fairly sound common sense recommendations too), as researchers who might charge €60-70,000 [1] to produce a 120 page report with literary reviews, executive summaries, conclusions and recommendations [2].

The finished product from what I might call common knowledge research may not have academic polish, a comprehensive bibliography, statistical rigour, or a glossy layout but the result, i.e. the essence, would probably be much the same. And anyway, what might be lost in statistical rigour might be gained in qualitative accuracy.

It is, of course, acceptable, when students are doing final year projects in colleges, (or even Masters’ or Doctorate dissertations – though to the best of my knowledge a Doctorate is supposed to be completely original), that there might be some repetition of research that was done before.

However if we hand out large amounts of money for research we have a responsibility to ensure that 1): the area has not been researched before, at least in the recent past, in a similar vein and culture, and 2): the research done is methodologically original.  (I will offer suggestions later on originality).

I have seen serious amounts of money given to researchers (whether they are private or public – i.e. academic) – but when the Research is complete, little (or usually nothing) is allocated to alleviate the distress that the research uncovers.

Generally I find the vast majority of what I read quite interesting, but I have to honestly say that I struggle to find truly original discoveries, results, thinking, conclusions, recommendations etc. in much of it! I also think that doing academic research tees us up to be in the image and likeness of the Pillars – so the necessity to continually do research is perpetuated.

Finally, anytime I read about social research to be done, or anytime I am involved in it in some peripheral way I hear about ethical concerns.  Researchers go to considerable trouble to assure everyone that they are ethically aware and will do everything in their power to adhere to best practice in respect of vulnerable peoples’ right not to be harmed. 

In my opinion, the one major ethical concern in research (which I don’t think that I have ever seen written down – nor has any researcher mentioned it to me) is that nothing changes for the vulnerable people as a result of the research done.

[1]. Yes – I have come across research costing that much money!  And unbelievably, when I was writing this website, during the worst housing crisis in living memory in Ireland, the Government was spending money doing research on the effects of long-term homelessness on children’s education.  Surely we know this already?

[2]. Some years I was involved in a research project commissioned by a highly regarded agency which was carried out by one of the most prestigious (and I’d say expensive) social research companies in Ireland.  Those doing the interviews and collecting the data presented as not that interested.  The sample was, in my view, unacceptably small, with quite a lot of people not turning up for scheduled interviews.  The participants in the research displayed a low level of enthusiasm and nothing new (that was discernible to the participants anyway) happened as a result of it!