Journal Clubs

• What is a Journal Club?
• How do Journal Clubs Operate?
• Who takes part in a Tusla Journal Club?
• Why not start your own?
• Existing Journal Clubs

What is a Journal Club?

A Journal Club is a group of Tusla staff who meet regularly to evaluate recent articles in the peer reviewed journal literature and reflect jointly on their relevance to practice within the context in which the staff are working. Sometimes these groups are also known as Practice Review Fora, as the intention is to ensure that practice is always informed by the best and most recent evidence.

How do Journal Clubs operate?

There can be a variety of ways in which such clubs/fora can operate. One of the ways to date in which Tusla staff have put it into practice, is to agree in advance of a meeting of the club, for a staff member to select an article for discussion and review and circulate links to the full text of the article to other members of the club. The staff member then gives a presentation at the meeting of the club, reflecting on the learning and its applicability or otherwise to the context/situation in which staff are working. Once the review is complete, then the discussion begins with other staff members, reflecting on what they have heard and offering their own contributions. Everyone has a voice and is encouraged to participate in the discussions and any decisions which might be taken about application to practice. Sometimes the first meetings of these clubs are linked with a session on how to search for information within databases and journals from resources available via Tusla Open Athens user names and passwords.

Who takes part in a Tusla Journal Club?

A number of Journal Clubs have been formed in 2020, through the initiative of Tusla’s Research and Information Mentors. These can exist for a particular group of practitioners in a specific area of practice such as Adoption Services, or for all Tusla staff in a given geographical area. It’s important that the numbers involved are not too large so as to prevent all from participating easily.

Why not start your own?

Contact details for the lead members of the current journal clubs are listed below. They have all indicated they would be happy to share their experiences with you as well as knowledge of how their clubs work. If you want to know more and are interested in starting your own Journal Club, drop them an e-mail. If you do decide to start a journal club of your own, let us know at trc@tusla.ie, so we can include details and description of your work on this page

Existing Journal Clubs