Medical research ethics committees and social work research: a hurdle too far?

SOCIAL work research; ETHICS committees; MEDICAL ethics committees; SOCIAL services; HUMAN services

This article discusses the author's views on social work research. It raises an issue which is beginning to cause serious problems for social work researchers. There seems to be an increasing requirement for social work research proposals to be submitted for approval to local health authority ethics committees. One pediatrician has suggested that all proposals involving children or their families should go first to area child protection committees and then to all ethical committees pertaining to the different agencies. Given the difficult and lengthy process of obtaining funding for social work research I believe this would mean that only the most ardent and fervent researchers would ever get a project off the ground. I am certainly not suggesting that ethical approval for social science projects is unnecessary, but rather than the medical approach to ethical screening is often wholly inappropriate to the kinds of study typically undertaken by social work researchers. There are, for example, fundamental differences in the epistemological construction of disability which make it anomalous to see social research being approved by the same committees that spend most of their time considering the ethical ramifications of using particular drugs or procedures to treat specific medical conditions.