Time is the dance of research

Before entering the world of research and evaluation, I was a Family Therapist specialising in how substance abuse affected families and parenting. My interests led me to design and facilitate a number of family substance use interventions which were both individually and group based. Each time I designed a new family substance use intervention, I became more aware that to understand which aspects of the treatment was effective and which aspects were not, it would be essential to include and implement an evaluation framework for the program. I soon recognised that my proficiency in understanding evaluation methods and their processes was insufficient and therefore would have to leave the investigation regarding the intervention's efficacy to someone else. The work involved in evaluating the interventions initially tickled my interest but soon this grew to intrigue. The more I began to understand the need for evaluation, the more I became aware of how little I knew about the subject and how important it was to provide evidence based practice to, firstly, the funding sources and secondly, and more importantly, the people who requested my knowledge and skills.