New ways of seeing: Health social work leadership and research capacity building

Building research capacity amongst social work practitioners is critically important for leaders in the social work profession. To reverse an apparent reluctance to use evidence and engage in research, strong social work leadership in practice organisations is needed. The literature on leadership in health social work is relatively silent regarding research capacity building as a leadership attribute but it is argued in this paper that leadership is crucial. A programme of research capacity building and its outcomes in a health social work department is described, identifying key principles guiding its establishment and tasks undertaken. A transformational leadership style characterised this approach to research capacity building which delivered benefits to the staff and the service.