Contents

1. Introduction
1.1 BRF purpose and aims
1.2 Background to the paper

2. What is the place of research in an organisation offering care to the bereaved?

2.1 Reasons for undertaking research
2.2 The need to ensure good practise and accountability
2.3 Assessing need and responding appropriately
2.4 A more formally developed research strategy

3. Deciding whether to engage in research

3.1 What is the role of research and who owns it?
3.2 What is needed to support research?

4. Summary

References

Appendix One

An Organisational Protocol for Undertaking Ethical Research

Research in organisations providing bereavement care

1. Introduction

1.1 BRF purpose and aims

The main purpose of the Bereavement Research Forum is to
provide opportunities for the discussion, promotion and
development of bereavement research by:

 * Providing a forum to encourage and facilitate future research
   into bereavement

 * Exploring research issues such as methodology and ethics

 * Disseminating bereavement research findings to a wide
   audience

 * Promoting the application of research into policy and practice.

1.2 Background to the paper

The intention of this paper is to support practitioners and researchers in the planning, undertaking and use of research in their organisational contexts. The Bereavement Research Forum Steering Committee is committed to developing research guidelines for organisations and individual researchers undertaking bereavement research. Although, at the moment, we are not pursuing any research projects as an organisation, members and others attending Symposia meetings do raise dilemmas for which Bereavement Research Forum might provide considered practical and ethical guidance.

The following guidelines are based on a Guidance paper, written in 2002, by Linda Machin (Chair of the Bereavement Research Forum from 1999 to 2002). It was developed as guidelines for Bereavement Care (North Staffordshire), and incorporates the work of Colin Murray Parkes (1995) on bereavement research. These guidelines need to be considered in the light of practitioners’ own existing professional regulations, and are complements to well established research procedures e.g. those determined by ethics committees.

Readers who are looking for information on approaches to bereavement research including methodology, design and measurement, as well as a discussion of ongoing challenges, are referred to the Handbook of Bereavement Research (Stroebe et al, 2001).

2. What is the place of research in an organisation offering care
       to the bereaved?

2.1 Reasons for undertaking research

Some reasons for undertaking research might include:

 * To test the validity of theory

 * To evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches or
    techniques

 * To demonstrate e.g. to a funding body the effectiveness of the
    counselling/care approach

 * To enable an individual practitioner to monitor his/her work

 * To allow a practitioner to resolve a ‘burning question’

 * To obtain a Masters degree or a PhD, thus increasing the skill
    base of the individual and organisation

 * To let others know about a particularly interesting piece of work

 * To establish academic credibility

 * To enhance the professional status of counsellors/carers in
    relation to other professional groups ( McLeod,1993, p.176)

2.2 The need to ensure good practise and accountability

In all areas of service provision, public, private and voluntary, the need to ensure good practice and to be publicly accountable for the quality of care and the good use of funding is essential. Transparency in audit is therefore not negotiable. At this level the collection of statistics and their analysis is an essential part of understanding the nature of a client group and the work that is undertaken by practitioners whether they are paid or volunteers. Similarly the prioritising and allocation of finance to sustain the work is an ongoing area of scrutiny in a team/agency. Systematic justification of a service is a research activity.

2.3 Assessing need and responding appropriately

Counselling, and other forms of care offered to the bereaved, involves a process of 𠆏inding out’. It is a way of being available to clients, engaging with and assessing their needs, and deciding upon an appropriate therapeutic response. In undertaking this process practitioners are carrying out a form of research. While few practitioners would describe their work as research it is clear that their therapeutic skills have much in common with the sensitive investigative skills used in formal research activities. A bereavement service/organisation continues to accumulate knowledge and expertise from this aspect of its own activity:

a) about clients and client groups

b) about the nature of the therapeutic process

Supervision acts as a supportive and regulatory function in this form of ‘finding out’. Silverman (2000) describes how researchers and clinicians are parts of separate cultures of thinking – however their human experience unites them. She makes an argument for both cultures to ‘recognize their dependence on each other and on their own personal experience to guide and inform their work’. This leads us to examine how formal research structures can be integrated into organisation practice.

2.4 A more formally developed research strategy

Research that takes place beyond that identified above becomes an issue for specific discussion and policy making within an organisation or team. Deciding a research strategy is the joint responsibility of those who carry a management function (e.g. a management committee, team leaders etc), usually in consultation with those practitioners whose area of work is a likely focus for research.

There are different motivations for research. The need for research may be generated by

 * internally driven study priorities (e.g. a need to know more
    about a group currently under-using the Service)

 * the training needs of staff (e.g. for a Masters degree) or

 * an agreed host to an external agency or individual who has been granted access to clients, staff or the organisation (e.g. a national study of a particular client group).

3. Deciding whether to engage in research

3.1 What is the role of research and who owns it?

An initial question needs to be asked: ‘Does the organisation wish to engage in research, as a related but separate activity to that of primary caring/service delivery and audit?’ If the answer is yes, then the implication is that the research culture is ‘owned’ as an organisational commitment. Ownership implies commitment to the

 * place of research within the overall enterprise of the agency

 * activity of the research and an understanding about its effects
    on the emphasis and priorities of ongoing service provision

 * practice implications that are indicated by the research
    findings.

Some research methods, such as ‘action research’, demand a very active ownership by the organisation because the ‘finding out’ is integrated within ongoing practice activity and practitioners are intensively used. Other methods may run in parallel with the primary care functions but will have resource implications for the agency (e.g. funding of interviewers, administrative support etc).

3.2 What is needed to support research?

The support and supervision of researchers is just as important as it is for clinical practice. What available resources are there to undertake this? Do resources need to be developed?

A structure is necessary to approve and monitor research projects within the strategic policy decided by the organisation/team. The questions central to decision making about individual pieces of work are:

 * Does the proposal fit with the organisational aims?
    (Organisational aims may need to be revisited and/or clarified
    in order to answer this question).

 * Does the proposal fit with good research practice? i.e. Is it
    ethical and practical?

 * From an organisation point of view is the timing right?

 * What are the resource implications – human and financial?

A group needs to be designated, either as part of an existing function or with a specific research responsibility, to approve research projects (i.e. to function as an ‘ethics committee’ or to prepare a presentation for an external ethics committee) and to monitor the progress of the research project. (A suggested organisational protocol for undertaking ethical research is provided in Appendix One).


4 Summary

Key considerations in reviewing the issue of research are:

 * The place of research within organisational strategy

 * The prioritising of themes and issues for research attention

 * The structures and protocols for the approval and monitoring of
    projects

 * The means of ensuring the resource base exists to sustain
    research and researchers

 * The means by which research will be put into practice

References

McLeod, J. (1993) An Introduction to Counselling. Buckingham: Open University Press

Parkes. C.M. (1995) Guidelines for Conducting Ethical Research
                                   Death Studies: 19, 171-181.

Silverman PR (2000) Research, clinical practice and the human
experience: putting the pieces together.
                                   Death Studies: 24, 469-478.

Stroebe M, Hanson RO, Stroebe W and Schut H. (2001) Handbook of bereavement research: consequences, coping and care. Washington: American Psychological Association

APPENDIX ONE

An Organisational Protocol for Undertaking Ethical Research

Ethical considerations are essential to all aspects of the planning and execution of research and need to be evidenced throughout the research process. This protocol details six guidelines proposing that where research is carried out the following principles are adhered to :

 * Ethical congruence is maintained
 * The research is monitored
 * There is organisational congruence
 * Rights of all concerned are safe-guarded
 * Organisational responsibility is fulfilled
 * The research contract is clarified

1 Ethical congruence is maintained

All research should be carried out in a way which maintains the ethos of the organisation and its caring intent; ensuring the rights and needs of clients/service users, non-service users and practitioners as central, whether they are direct research participants or not. The timing and resource implications need careful consideration as part of a responsible engagement with a research project.

2 The research is monitored

Checks on the research aims and methods should be monitored throughout the research process:

a) The proposal should be submitted for acceptance by the monitoring group and/or other ethics committees. The exact nature of the scrutinising bodies will depend upon the particular setting in which the research will be undertaken

b) The work should be piloted and revised

c) There should be an induction into the research process for all staff within the organisation who will be effected by it

d) There must be clear supervision (e.g. project management) of the research within the organisation in addition to that which may be provided by an academic institution

e) Regular consultation and review should take place within the organisation between the researcher, research supervisor and manager.

3 There is organisational congruence

The design of the research should be consistent with the care needs of service users, where they are the subject of the research.

a) The research methodology should be consistent with bereavement care objectives

b) The research protocol should be consistent with other organisational practices e.g. procedures for record keeping etc

c) Where the research triggers some evident vulnerability, which is not being addressed (either by the service undertaking the research or any other service), a procedure for accessing appropriate support, with the respondent’s consent, should be in place

d) Where the research is undertaken with non-service users or staff and personal vulnerability is triggered, a procedure for accessing appropriate support, with the respondent’s consent, should be in place.

4 Rights are safe-guarded

Clients, non-service users and practitioners, who are the subject of bereavement research should have their rights safe guarded.

a) Participants should be given adequate and clear information about the research

b) There should be no explicit or implicit pressure/inducement to participate

c) Informed consent should be obtained. This should be in writing and include additional specific consent if the use of audio or video recording is used. A second consent form should be used to allow the recorded material to be used if it is required for purposes other than those explained within the consent form e.g. academic assessment. Where a third person has facilitated access to a research respondent e.g. to a child or a client with a learning disability, care needs to be taken to ensure that the client him/herself is a willing participant. This is especially important where communication and/or understanding is limited

d) The right to withdraw, at any stage in the research process, must be made explicit

e) Confidentiality/anonymity must be explained and understood within the research framework

f) Where appropriate, findings of the research should be fed back to participants

g) Appreciation of their commitment to the research process should be conveyed to respondents and other participants.

5 Organisational responsibility is fulfilled

The organisation has a responsibility to:

a) Critically reflect on the relevance of the research to its own practice

b) Revise its own structures and priorities in the light of research findings

c) Revise its own approaches to care of the bereaved in the light
    of research findings

d) Disseminate findings to a wider audience

6 The research contract is clarified

Researchers undertaking studies within a ‘host’ organisation or
in a totally individual capacity need within the preliminary planning, to clarify the research strategy. Negotiation of a strategy with the ‘host’ organisation, if they do not already have one, should take place. In conjunction with this, a contract needs to specify the role and responsibility of the researcher and the organisation, and outline the research protocol/timetable/
methods/cost/ownership. Lone researchers would also be advised to document the strategic base of their study. Such strategies should include:

a) The theoretical, practical and ethical justification for the study

b) The resource implications i.e. people and money

c) The nature of access to a study sample

d) The nature of the ethical responsibility towards the study
     sample

e) The practical means of safeguarding the rights of respondents
     e.g. informed consent

f) The establishment and maintenance of a monitoring function by
    those with a client ‘gate-keepers’ responsibility e.g. service
    manager

g) The establishment and maintenance of supervision by those
     with an expertise in research e.g. a college tutor

h) A timetable for the completion of the work

i) A process for feed-back and dissemination

j) The nature of ownership of the completed work between the
    researcher and the organisation