Working together in special needs parenting: An innovative research dissemination project

Abstract

Research findings are often inaccessible to those who need them and knowledge sharing between researchers, practitioners and community groups can be impeded by organizational, role and priority differences. This paper presents a university-community project designed to make research knowledge available to diverse users, facilitate their input, and build connections between diverse communities impacted by child disability. A team of Canadian researchers, social workers and community partners held workshops to discuss findings of a study on parenting adopted children with special needs and share research knowledge on advocacy for children with disabilities. Parents, service providers, professionals and organizations from disability and adoption communities met together in small mixed role groups to discuss the issues raised and identify priorities. Workshop material was captured to produce practical audio-visual and print documents, which were made available at no cost to all those who could use them. Formative and summative workshop evaluation concluded that project goals were achieved primarily because of ongoing community involvement and a respectful, open climate which encouraged sharing of expertise across roles and disciplines. Reflections of team members and community partners add data on the usefulness and challenges of this type of collaborative project.