The Connection Between Research and Practice: Why Both Are Critically Important to Our Work

By Glenn Martin and Roberta Meyers-Peeples
Originally published in HIRE Network News: June 2004, Vol. 2, Issue 6

With the limited amount of funding available to direct service providers, especially in a slow growth economy, there is often resentment and a misplaced notion that researchers are somehow draining valuable resources and are not actively contributing to the solution in a meaningful way. The truth is quite the opposite; both practitioners and researchers together play an instrumental role in the advocacy and public awareness campaign that is necessary to create better employment opportunities for people with criminal records.