Can knowledge exchange forge a collaborative pathway to policymaking? A case study example of the Recognition Matters knowledge exchange project

Knowledge Exchange is considered a way that research might be operationalised beyond the academy, both within policy and practice. This article seeks to analyse knowledge exchange as a method of bringing field, research and policy together. It does so through the case study of a social work knowledge exchange project, ‘Recognition Matters’. This co-produced project brought together two separate research studies undertaken by the authors. These studies focused on different elements of child welfare and protection: pre-birth child protection and Family Group Conferencing, respectively. The research findings were creatively woven together with the retelling of a mother’s story of child protection proceedings, alongside the practice wisdom and experience of three social work practitioners. In this article, the authors firstly consider the conditions for collaborative knowledge exchange as a commitment to social justice. Using the case study described, the value of this approach as a mechanism for social work to engage in policymaking is then explored. It is argued that in the context of significant challenges to the realisation of social justice, collaborative knowledge exchange activities may represent a genuine avenue for transforming social policy and creating meaningful research impact.