ABSTRACT
Academic practitioner partnerships develop practice research agendas through a process of engagement involving practitioners and service users. This chapter describes a model of an academic practitioner partnership as it evolved and was developed in Melbourne together with an example of how this resulted in a practice research study. Social work professionals have adapted to the new roles, taken on new responsibilities in terms of scope of practice, models of care and organisational governance requirements. Social workers in practice obtain regular feedback from both patients and staff, feedback which monitors the effectiveness of social work interventions. The audit tool was co-created in a practice research initiative between the University of Melbourne and allied health practitioners from St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne. Staff members from all participating sites were informed about the origins of the project, the purpose of the current audit and details of what their individual participation would entail.
