Roundtable: Developing Organic Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

There is often a disconnect between technical assistance and research in criminal justice. Technical assistance (TA) is typically provided as instruction in established practices, with little opportunity for recipients to develop practices best suited to their own circumstances. And research is typically designed and carried out by researchers remote from practitioners, with little opportunity for the latter to determine the course of the research. This roundtable relates the experiences of a TA provider and two community-corrections agencies it works with. In the course of the TA-practitioner engagements, the TA provider became familiar with the practitioners’ broader operations and helped them develop the capacity to test their own innovations with randomized controlled trials—to develop their own evidence-based practices. This approach is showing success in a variety of criminal-justice and related environments.

Sub Unit

• Area XIII: Roundtable Sessions

Chair

• Jonathan Kulick, Pepperdine University

Discussants

• Angela Hawken, Pepperdine University

• Kelli Zook, Clackamas County (OR) Community Corrections

• Sonya Dunlap, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction