Underpinning reflective practice in social care and housing provision through collaborative knowledge exchange

Since 1988 Scotland has had a policy of providing care in the community for people with disability, through social housing. A number of specialised housing and social care providers are active in this area. In response to an emerging anecdotal understanding of how changes made in the built environment of housing had impacted on the quality of life of service users and care provision, one such provider in Scotland entered a collaborative knowledge exchange process with academic institutions, aiming to better understand the nature of this impact. Through a government and research council supported Kowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) this collaboration verified the anecdotal experience of service staff across a structured sample of housing locations and types provided by the housing association, and reviewed this in the light of existing published knowledge. The outcome confirmed the experiential learning of the housing and service provider and has permitted knowledge exchange between academia and the housing provider. This paper describes the process of close collaboration that was established to enable this knowledge exchange. The KTP process underpinned a new approach to continuing reflective practice within the housing association, and provided this with a robust evidence base for marketing and policy activity, reinforcing its ongoing re-structuring in a changing policy and funding context for the housing and care service providers. In addition, it synthesises the findings from the research, benchmarked by the wider literature.