User Involvement and Participation in Social Care

Chris Dearden is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. She has undertaken extensive research on young carers, and is currently engaged in research on children's perspectives on poverty.

This volume tackles a daunting challenge: to explain how research in social care, a specialist domain of academic institutions, can become participative by drawing users into the process. In this it succeeds and the promise in the editors' short introduction largely realized - to explore various 'methodologies that engage participants and promote a sense of mutality in the research process.

• Introduction, Hazel Kemshall, DeMontfort University and Rosemary Littlechild, Birmingham University. 1. Participation and Involvement in Social Care, Suzy Braye, Staffordshire University 2. Just Inquiry? Research and Evaluation for Service Users, Ian Shaw, Cardiff University 3. Totem not Token: Groupwork as a Vehicle for User Participation, David Ward, DeMontfort Unversity. 4. Action Research for the Development of Children's Services in the Ukraine, Jennie Fleming, DeMontfort University. 5. Family Involvement in Child Protection: The Use of Family Group Conferences, Kate Morris, Birmingham University and Carmel Shepherd, Guardian ad Litem. 6. Politics into Practice: The Production of a Disabled Person's Guide to Accessing Community Care Assessments, Kathryn Ellis, Luton University and Kirstein Rummery, Manchester University. 7. Breaking the Ice: Developing Strategies for Collaborative Working with Carers of Older People with Mental Health Problems, Helen Rogers, Birmingham University. 8. Listening to Children: Meeting the Needs of Young Carers, Chris Dearden and Saul Becker, Loughborough University. 9. Older People as `Participating Patients', Rosemary Littlechild and Jon Glasby, Birmingham University. 10. Working with Sickle Cell/Thalassaemia Support Groups, Simon Dyson, DeMontfort University. 11. `Framing Your own Questions': Empowering Patients and Primary Health Care Workers in the Planning of Primary Health Care Services, Angus McCabe and Liz Ross, Birmingham University. 12 .Policies of Neglect: Female Offenders and the Probation Service, Judith Rumgay, London School of Economics. 13. User Involvement, Community Care and Disability Research, Kathryn Ellis, Luton University 14. Researching for Participation: Some Concluding Remarks, Hazel Kemshall, DeMontfort University and Rosemary Littlechild, Birmingham University. References. Index.