This is an unusual issue of Relational Child and Youth Care Practice. Unusual in that most of it is focused on research. Wait. If you are a practitioner don’t run away just yet. I want to tell a little story.

When I was doing my doctorate, I was informed that I had to ‘do research.’ Now, this very thought threw me instantly into a deep panic. I thought ‘research’ meant ‘statistics’ and numbers and I have never really been friends. So, calling on all my personal resources, I tried everything I could think of to avoid having to ‘do research.’ I begged and pleaded, appealed to the more liberal minded in the school, argued that it was better for me to ‘write a book.’ None of that worked, so I drew on other resources, notably my imagination, explaining how ‘doing research’ was likely to cause me to have a nervous breakdown, hinted that it was a ‘freedom of expression’ issue and subtly suggested that I had a ‘cultural aversion’ to dealing with research. All still to no avail.

So, gritting my teeth, ‘hunkering down’ as my old friend Bruce used to say, I bit the bullet — yup, all those mixed metaphors were a part of my reaction. I was disoriented, confused, resistant and reluctant (sounds like my childhood).

Then one day after weeks (okay months) of resisting, pondering, plotting and reflection, it happened; I found a question to which I really wanted to know the answer. And when I looked at the question which had formed for me, I realised that if I could find ‘an answer’ to that question, I might just become a better practitioner. Click. Insight. Connection!

My fear went away. Just like that. I still didn’t want to ‘do research’, but I did want to know the answer to my question, and research, the idea of research, was transformed from an unfortunately required task, to an opportunity to learn and develop. And that fitted really well with my definition of a competent practitioner; one who is constantly learning and developing in order to become a better practitioner.

I believe in the value of research now. I believe that good practice, like it or not, is often research-informed practice. As Gerry Fewster said “every act of research may, in turn, contribute to the quality of practice” (1998, p. vi). Now this does not mean that every act of research does contribute to the quality of practice (note the word ‘may’ in the quote from Fewster). Indeed there is a lot of bad, irrelevant or just plain useless research out there. At times I wonder why some of it gets published, not just done. And I am not arguing in favour of only Evidence Based Practice—not a chance—but I will leave it to Janet Newbury (this issue) to explain why not.

Good research in our field, however, can inform practice—and so it should. In many ways good practice, as Frances Ricks (personal communication) has been known to say, involves the act of research. Who is this young person? How does she make sense of the world? What skills does she possess? How can we help? What makes this family unique? What can they do differently in order to get unstuck? Ultimately these are research questions and, as Child and Youth Care practitioners we engage in these acts of research every day. In other words, if you are a practitioner, you are, by definition, a researcher. Well, unless you are a really bad practitioner sticking with predetermined institutional responses to kids and families.

When I read the first article in this issue, therefore, I felt a familiarity, a connection with the author’s experience. In it, Jessica Evans, in writing about her changed relationship with research, reveals her concern that “. . . if I got too close, it [research] could add rigidity to my practice, or somehow fuel my brain instead of my heart” (Evans, this issue). A common fear, I am afraid, because somehow we have separated the idea of informing ourselves through research and the idea of practice: the brain and the heart of Child and Youth Care.

The research which you will read in this issue may not fit your standard stereotype of what research looks like. No long columns of numbers and probability tests. No mundane, if academically appropriate, incomprehensible sentences written to be understood by a limited group of peers. Rather, the research here is research easily digestible and translatable for our field and for our practice. Indeed, one of the articles, Children in Art, by Robin Jackson, is a special kind of interpretative reflection which invites you, as the reader, in many ways to be the researcher yourself. What do you see? How do you interpret this art? How do the author’s reflections fit with your own? Robin does not ask these questions, but to a reflective practitioner they come readily to mind. Just as they might when you look at how a young person has created their life, or listen to the artful narrative which is their reflection of that life.

And what about ‘peak experiences’, defined here as “an occurrence, event or experience that is characterized by feelings of interconnectedness, harmonization, unification and/ or an awareness of something greater then oneself” (Evans and Scott, this issue). This spiritual dimension of experiencing is something all people experience at some point, frequently in their childhood. “So, what?” you might ask. So, how might that influence a person’s development? How might these experiences relate to what we encounter when we engage with young people and families? These are important questions for a reflective practitioner. This article will have you asking these, and more, questions of relevance.

In 1981, Frances Ricks, at the first Canadian National Child Care Workers Conference, argued that we should engage in research “with the same passion and fervour evidenced in child care clinical settings” (p. 84). Since then, numerous respected authors in our field have echoed essentially the same argument: there is not only a place, but a need, for relevant research to better inform our practice. It is not that we all have to go out and ‘do research’ of this nature, but we do have an obligation to support, read and translate the relevant research in order to continue our development as a field. And when you get to the last article in this issue, ask yourself this question: “Would the Waypoints program have developed as it did, if it had not conducted its own practice research into what works for kids, staff and the community?” I think not.

Well, I am not going to go on about the other articles and pieces in this issue. And not everything here is about research. There is enough, however, that I felt the need to comment on it and in doing so, to comment a little on our relationship with research. For ultimately this is a relational question. What is the relationship between research and practice? How can research influence relational development? How can research help us to become better at what we do without threatening the ‘heart of practice’? We think this issue answers some of these, and other, questions.