#4

another day and another ramble on.

I've been trying to get my head around the research project but so far haven't really got very far. I kinda know what i want to be doing and in many ways am already doing that but some more structure may be necessary. Mmmm that sounds a little radical, maybe i'll have to get to the old drawing board and actually draw something - rather than being all 'post modern' about it.

However, although it seems as if the research side of things has been a little ad hoc, other things are moving quite well. In particular i seem to have been doing a lot for the special edition of CPR. The first articles that i have received are being peer reviewed and i have an idea of how the whole is now going to look. i have also been getting on with the 2 submissions that i want to make. So this is good. Other publications that may show their ugly little heads are a chapter in william's book about 'counselling on the edge' (although i don't think that this is happening quite yet) and a book introducing practioners to research. Oh yeah it also looks as though my review of Mick Cooper's in school work is going to go in the next edition of CPR - hopefully it will make him chuckle.

Coming back to the research - although i feel they all complement each other I specifically refer to the work i am doing with kooth as my PhD research - I have begun to try and evaluate the training that the practitoners have undertaken. To do so i have asked individuals to comment in the message forums. So far no-one has. I have had one message through kooth's internal mailing system though, which is a start. My plan is to complete a questionnaire and inform all of those who attended about it.

Some issues that have arose about the traing - it was slightly confused in places. Mainly because those attending didn't know, or more acurately assumed that they would be offering counselling online. However, in reality each of the orgs will only get a very limited amount of time and it will mean that it will probably only end up with 1 person taking up the hours. i feel that this could have been sorted out earlier - but the rush to get it online and to start spending the money was at the fore.

This leads nicely to the politcal debate that has been going on in my head. I may have mentionned this in a previous posting but it is still ticking around. basically what are we doing set up such services. Oh no that's more of the ontological debate. this comes into the epistemological debate i think. Basically at the root of the whole Connexions project is the hope to get more people into jobs - does this fit well with counselling? and i guess the next thing would be does counselling fit with getting funding? particularly if there is a reluctance to evaluate and 'prove' efficacy!!!. Mmm it's all very interesting (at least for me).

#3

thought i better check in again to this

i've just been writing part of a book review that I'm supposed to have finished ages ago. I haven't quite worked out what that's all about. I'm guessing there's a combination of nervousness from submitting things to be published and laziness. I guess that this is interesting to some degree as if you're going to complete some research then you have to be able to tell people about it - with this in mind things in the pipeline include:

- editorial for the cpr special edition
- article on failed research with william for the special edition
- article about my own MSc research for the special edition
- article about using bloggin as a research tool - have a few ideas for where it may go but depends how this eveolves i guess
- summary of online counselling literature - possibly for the BJGC

anyhow these are ideas - baring fruits will be another stage.

Yesterday I did a session for the doc couns students at the uni. It went relatively well although i think it could have flowed better. It initiated a lot of interesting debate and reitteated to me how involved with the whole political side of counselling I am. I could muse a lot more about htat but i'm gonna get back on with writing this review.