Reducing the Research-Practice Gap in Domestic Violence

The under-utilization of research by domestic violence practitioners and the lack of attention by researchers to the experiences and wisdom of practitioners have been identified by numerous scholars. This “research-practice gap” has the potential to hinder progress in both research and practice. In the area of practice, approaches shown to be ineffective may continue to be used, and demonstrated effective approaches may fail to be implemented. In the area of research, failure to consider practical implications of studies can lead to research that is out of line with the actual needs of clients and service providers. For these reasons, the domestic violence research-practice gap represents a significant challenge for both researchers and practitioners to address.

CED faculty member Christine Murray and her colleagues have conducted a series of studies to understand and address various facets of the gap between research and practice in domestic violence prevention and intervention. The first study involved a statewide survey of domestic violence service providers to examine their needs and perceptions related to research (Murray & Welch, 2010). The second study involved the development of a scale to measure domestic violence researchers’ perceptions of the links between research and practice (Murray & Smith, 2009). The third study involved a Delphi study of representatives from state domestic violence coalitions to identify possible solutions to bridging the gap between research and practice (Murray, Smith, & Avent, 2010).

What are some of the major lessons learned through these studies?

1. Three barriers to service providers’ access to research findings are costs, time required to read and interpret research articles, and highly specialized technical language that is difficult to comprehend without extensive training in research methods

2. To maximize the accessibility of research-based information for service providers, research summaries should be presented in brief, highly readable formats, and the practical implications should be emphasized.

3. Domestic violence researchers and practitioners generally are interested in working together. However, practitioners and researchers may have had negative experiences with members of the "other" group, and so greater efforts are needed to bring them together to foster dialogue.

4. Research-based guidelines for practice with clients impacted by domestic violence should not be rigidly prescriptive. Research findings cannot provide all of the answers, and information should be presented in a way that leaves room for the informed clinical judgment of practitioners.

5. Researchers may need to learn more about practical demands faced by service providers. Likewise, service providers may benefit from additional training in understanding and applying research.

References

Murray, C. E., & Smith, P. H. (2009). Perceptions of research and practice among domestic violence researchers. Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research, 1, 4-21.

Murray, C. E., Smith, P. H., & Avent, J. (2010). Solutions to the research-practice gap in domestic violence: A modified Delphi study with domestic violence coalition leaders. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma, 19, 424-449.

Murray, C. E., & Welch, M. (2010). Preliminary construction of a service provider-informed domestic violence research agenda. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. First published on-line on February 2, 2010 as doi:10.1177/0886260509354883.

Latest volume of Sexuality Counseling Guidebook by CED 691 students is available

Students in the Fall 2011 Sexuality Counseling course are pleased to present Volume VI of the Sexuality Counseling Guidebook, which focuses on the topic of "Good Sex." Topics included in the guidebook include attraction, positive sexual communication, spirituality, and sexual self-esteem, among others. This volume, along with the previous five volumes, can be downloaded from Dr. Murray's faculty web-page: http://www.uncg.edu/ced/faculty/murray.html Students in CED 691 this semester were: Jenifer Aronson, Elizabeth Doom, Paulina Flasch, Callie Gordon, Susan Henkel, Kate Jessup, Adam Kim, Jenna McGown, Bill Molen, Tom Peake, and Lindy Snyder

Welcome to the Counseling Research-Practice Blog!

Whether counseling is an art or science – or a combination of both –has has long been debated within the profession. Clearly, research does not have all the answers as to how best to work with all clients in all types of settings, and the value of strong clinical judgment cannot be understated. Nevertheless, research findings can serve as a valuable resource for counselors to inform and improve their work. For example, research findings can:

· Help counselors select the most effective approaches

· Identify relevant aspects to assess or conceptualize clients

· Provide information to improve the effectiveness of treatment strategies

· Help counselors understand the characteristics of client populations

· Contribute to advances in the counseling profession

· Identify time- and cost-effective counseling strategies

· Highlight trends in the practice of counseling or within specific client populations

However, counselors should not blindly accept researchers’ conclusions and haphazardly apply them to their work. Counselors have a professional responsibility (and an ethical obligation; for example, see Standard C.2.f in the 2005 ACA Code of Ethics) to be informed, critical consumers of counseling research. Therefore, when reading about the research discussed in the entries on this blog, counselors are encouraged to take the following cautions into consideration:

· All research studies have limitations, and these limitations must be considered when interpreting and applying study findings. In our discussions of research studies, we will highlight some of the major “caveats” or limitations that impact the degree that a study can be applied to practice.

· Remember that research can be useful for identifying population trends and general themes and patterns within groups, which may not apply to all members of that group. Counselors must bear in mind that every client is unique, and so these trends, themes, and patterns will vary in the extent to which they apply to individual clients.

· Just as clients are unique, so are the settings in which counselors work. Findings that apply in one setting may not be appropriate for the unique geographic, cultural, and organizational influences of other settings. So, counselors should consider these contextual factors in determining whether and how to implement research findings in the settings in which they work.

This blog was started as an initiative of the Research-Practice Initiative in the Department of Counseling and Educational Development (CED) at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). The main goal of this blog is to provide descriptions of recent counseling research in ways that make practice-relevant research findings accessible to practitioners. We will cover many facets of counseling practice—including clinical supervision, counselor education, school counseling, college counseling, mental health counseling, and couple and family counseling.

This blog will highlight the work of CED researchers, including faculty members and doctoral students, as well as research done by scholars at other institutions. We will highlight research that is relevant to a variety of areas of counseling practice and translate that research into implications for counseling practice.

Finally, we offer some additional practical “tips” for how to get the most out of using this blog.

First, the information provided on this blog will only be brief synopses of the research we discuss. Therefore, we won’t provide full details on each study, such as the study’s grounding in the existing literature, the methodologies used, the findings, and the implications for clinical practice. Furthermore, the information we highlight may not be the information that others would focus on, so we encourage readers to seek out the full-text of articles that are most relevant to them.

Second, related to the first tip, we know that accessing the full-texts of journal articles may not be easy for some practicing counselors, especially if they are not affiliated with university libraries with extensive databases. Although we cannot provide full-text articles to readers, we do offer the following strategies that practitioners may be able to use to gain access to full-text research articles:

· Check with the libraries of the colleges/universities you attended to see if they have a way for alumni to gain access to their collections.

· Local public libraries can be another great resource for locating research-based information. Even if your local library does not subscribe to a particular journal, you may be able to access articles through their Interlibrary Loan programs.

· Maintain membership in professional organizations that publish peer-reviewed journals. For example, members of the American Counseling Association receive a subscription to the Journal of Counseling and Development with their membership fees.

Finally, we welcome feedback and discussion through this blog. We hope that it will stimulate respectful professional dialogue and an exchange of ideas about counseling research and its relevance to practice. Please note that discussions will be monitored, and inappropriate content will be removed. Comments may be left in the appropriate sections of this blog, and readers also may contact the members of the CED Research-Practice Initiative Steering Committee with additional feedback and suggestions. Committee members are as follows:

Christine E. Murray, Ph.D., LPC, LMFT

Keith Mobley, Ph.D., LPC, ACS

Kelly Wester, Ph.D., LPC