/In this book we aim to bridge the gap between theory and practiceand between academic and practice contexts in qualitative research.We do this through the use of research practice narratives to illustrate stages of the research process. It is more a book about ‘doing’research and ‘being’ a researcher than about ‘how to’ do research.In Chapter 1 we begin with an exploration of the journey frompractice to research—how to generate a research question and howsome research questions that arise in the human services mightbest be explored through a qualitative research design. The ensuingchapters focus on specific stages of the research process, throughdata collection, analysis and writing up to, finally, the shift fromresearch back to practice.Chapter 2 addresses ethical issues and the organisational contextof research.Chapters 3, 4 and 5 focus particularly on data collection. InChapter 3 we consider in-depth interviewing and in Chapter 4,observation. Chapter 5 addresses challenges involved in interviewing children and people with an intellectual disability,exploring different ways in which research can be modified to bettermeet the needs of these groups of participants.In Chapter 6 we consider some approaches to mixing qualitative and quantitative methods where one method alone cannotadequately address a research question. This is a common approachin the human services, where the issues researchers are faced withare often complex and multi-faceted"> In Chapter 7 we consider some data analysis processes that arecommon to many approaches to qualitative research. Chapter 8focuses on presentation and writing up, exploring different ways ofwriting up research so that the findings can be communicated withdifferent audiences. Finally, in Chapter 9 we conclude with thefeedback loop which takes us from research findings back topractice and policy implications—as practice research is a meansto an end, not an end in itself..