Social Care, Service Users and User Involvement

This book contains some very interesting and varied contributions to the literature of service user involvement in social care situations, concerning research, project work and practice. In addition to the initial and concluding chapters by the authors which discuss the theory, philosophy and influences behind the service user movement, the book contains twelve chapters from a variety of authors involved in diverse areas such as co-production with older persons, working with African and Caribbean men who use mental health services, research into the needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people, involving children and young people in research, and self-advocacy for people with learning difficulties, among others. As Peter Beresford points out in his initial chapter on the theory and philosophy behind ‘user involvement’, this concept is perhaps the most opaque of terms, meaning so many different things to different people. However, the strength of this book is that we hear directly from ‘service users’—another contested term—from their point of view who are engaged in activities of various kinds. Inevitably, this brings up the issue of participation and what this actually means in practice and then how participation links to that of having power and influence over one's own life. The key thing for me that comes out of this book is how valuable user involvement can be when it is done properly, built on people's self-defined goals and when it is genuinely built into organisations that are concerned with meeting people's needs. User involvement also has key implications for research and development and issues of being a ‘service user researcher’ are examined as well as the dynamics of service users undertaking research in partnership with professional researchers. These issues are explored in five major themes running through the book—exploring user involvement; involving people in quality and standard setting; involving people in research and evaluation; user-led service provision and inclusion; and addressing diversity. This work complements the 2012 contribution of Barnes and Cotterell, who cover user involvement in diverse contexts, again drawing on examples from user activists and academic researchers.