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Safeguarding

Leading Safer Organisations

What are journal articles and why are they important?

Journal articles are regular scholarly publications which contain articles on specific subjects.

They are important because:

  • They are the main forum by which research is published
  • Can explore narrow topics in depth
  • Contain current or recent research findings
  • Often peer reviewed

What are databases?

Research databases are ideal for:

  • When you need to conduct a more focused search than the library website provides and for searching specialist resources in your subject area.
  • Databases contain abstracts, journal articles and conference papers on specific subjects.
  •  We subscribe to three specific Social Work databases that are useful for Safeguarding but the list of other databases will also be useful for your assignments.
  • There is clear guidance given for each database on the topics it covers.

Key databases

These databases are aimed at social workers but contain key resources for safeguarding practice

Other useful databases

The databases below cover the humanities and social sciences.

Planning to search for resources

Recordings of how to search in various databases

Below are a selection of recordings to help you use various databases.

How to use Social Policy and Practice

Recording showing you how to use the Social Policy and Practice database - this is an abstract database but often does provide links to the full text of articles.

How to use Community Care Inform

Advanced searching using SCOPUS

Newspaper databases

Use the news tab in each of these databases to look for news stories.  Lexis is UK news, Nexis international.

TV/ radio database

Further Research

Abstract and Index database

Law databases

Useful for legal information and cases. In addition please use Nexis and Lexis which are in the newspaper tab.  These are also law databases.

Statistical databases

Psychology databases

Please note these two databases listed below are from the American Psychological Association.