Paper presented at 2009 JSWEC Conference. The implementation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 has implications for social researchers as well as health and medical research. The Act, however, is focused on the latter and Ethics Review for social research, where people may lack decision-making capacity to take part, presents complexities that have not yet been fully addressed. This paper reports a study of social work researchers’ involvement in university research ethics committees where the capacity of participants may be an issue. The findings suggest that perceived implications of the Act may inadvertently stifle important research and, if not carefully negotiated, the use of Research Ethics Review may prevent rather than enable people to become involved in research as participants. This may infringe the rights of people to participate in research and, therefore, may detract from the principles of the Act in presuming and enabling capacity where possible. The research was undertaken in two stages. A web-based search and documentary analysis of a sample of university research ethics committees’ policies and procedures determined current practice. The second stage involved semi-structured interviews with social work/social care researchers likely to be involved in areas covered by the Act. These interviews were thematically analysed to explore how ethical issues were considered, whether explicit account was taken of the Mental Capacity Act and in what ways the Act was believed potentially to impact on future research proposals. The study suggests there has been little attention to the implications of the Act so far by social work researchers, but where it has been considered problems have been identified. This paper makes some suggestions for negotiating university research ethics committees and making positive use of the Mental Capacity Act in developing research proposals where capacity may be an issue.

Presentation to 2008 JSWEC Conference. Informed by the work of Holden et al (1999, 2002) and Unrau and Grinnel (2005) research has been undertaken as part of the Evaluating the Outcomes of Social Work Education project funded by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and the Higher Education Academy Social Policy and Social Work subject Centre (SWAP) to look at how undergraduates develop self efficacy in research skills. This 3 year project using undergraduate participants following a second year Using Research for Practice unit of study on a qualifying social work programme in England has explored the development of confidence in research skills. Data was collected from 3 consecutive cohorts of students, at the beginning (T1) and end (T2) of the unit of study and a comparison group was recruited from another university. The data was analysed using SPSS software. The project also provides a case study of research capacity building in academic staff with the project researchers being mentored by an experienced researcher experienced in this research methodology. This paper will explore the methodology and findings of the research project and will consider some implications and challenges for the teaching of research skills to qualifying students in order to develop research minded practitioners. References Holden G. Barker K. Meenaghan T. and Rosenberg G. 1999. Research self efficacy: a new possibility for educational outcome assessment. Journal of Social Work Education. Vol 35. Holden G,, Meenaghan T, Anastas J and Mtry G. 2002. Outcomes of social work education: the case for social work self efficacy. Journal of Social Work Education. Vol 38. Unrau Y.A. and Grinnell R.M. 2005. The impact of social work research courses on research self-efficacy for social work students. Social Work Education. Vol 24, no.6.