The 4th International Conference on Practice Research (ICPR2017). Author: Tomofumi Oka Title: Practice research with leaders of self-help groups: Empowering people through knowledge production

1. Practice research
with leaders of self-help
groups: Empowering people
through knowledge production
Tomofumi Oka, PhD (Social Work)
Sophia University, Tokyo

2. Outline
1. Practice research and self-help groups
2. My involvement with family survivors of
suicide
3. Practice research with their groups
4. A remaining question
5. Conclusions

3. Practice research
“Practice research . . . reflects and emphasizes
the relationship and interaction between
researchers, practitioners and service users.”
(New York Statement of 2014, p. 2)
“How might service users become allies with
service providers . . . ?” (ibid., p. 4)
Here, service users are clearly separated
from service providers.

4. Self-help groups
Service providers = Service consumers
“Prosumers” (Toffler, 1980)
How do prosumers affect the
nature of practice research?

5. Example case
• Family survivors of suicide in Japan have been
forming self-help groups since 2006
• In 2008, they formed a nationwide association
and then asked me to work with them
• They are critical of professional services
provided

6. Two different philosophies
Professionals Self-help groups
Grief Pathologizing Normalizing
Issues Mental health Social/Legal
Orientation Therapy Community/
Social action
Public money

7. Practice research with survivors
1. Normalizing grief
• Orientational qualitative inquiry
(Patton, 2002)
2. Using poetic expressions to summarize
the research results:
• For example, the phrase “Grief is love”

9. By Sean Pathasema, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org
愛し [Kanashi] =
“Love” & “Sorrow”

10. A remaining question
Representativeness
• Self-help group members are not
representative of family survivors in
general
• So, how can our research impact
policy makers?

11. Conclusions
1. Self-help groups should play an
important role in practice research
2. Self-help groups for family survivors of
suicide are doing practice research to
empower themselves
3. The groups are still in the process of
gaining social recognition