Social Workers

Ontologically speaking, the research will begin from the foundational belief that problematic drug use is a complex issue, which is cut across by culture, social issues, oppression, identity and often, adverse life experiences such as trauma (Mersky et al, 2013; Mate, 2008). Therefore, the project will reflect the fact that human existence is diverse. It will identify commonalities across experiences, whilst paying close attention to the impact of difference, diversity and social inequality. The overarching aim will be to generate frameworks for understanding drug use, alongside knowledge around how services could adapt to meet increasingly complex levels of social need.
To do this, the proposed research will adopt a 'pragmatic epistemology' (Hothersall, 2016). Hothersall (2016) describes this as being where equal emphasis is placed upon examining experiential knowledge, practice insights and personal narratives. Within this epistemological framework, I will examine existing propositional knowledge from theory and existing literature, and will generate new knowledge by capturing the experiences of those with direct lived experience of drug use, and accessing a range of drug services. Within this, I will identifying trends across social groups, such as age, ethnicity, gender, race etc. The purpose of this is to examine how cultural and social context influences perceptions around accessing early intervention services, and whether current services have helped or challenged desistence/change attempts.