The social “R & D” paradigm in child and youth services: Building knowledge convivially

Adaptation of agricultural and industrial research and development models offers new methods for bridging the worlds of research and practice in child and youth services. Social R & D methodologies provide effective means for generating new social technologies because they are product oriented and use a wide array of traditional and nontraditional data sources. This article discusses one social R & D paradigm—Developmental Research and Utilization. Permanency planning and community support systems research are used to illustrate the past and potential application of this methodology to the field of child and youth services.