This is the report of a workshop held in March 2010 with a diverse group of service users interested in health and social care research. The aim was to find out how more people can be actively involved in research, especially groups and people whose views are heard less often in wider society.
This report details the ideas and perspectives from the service user participants, summarises the discussion between the service user participants and INVOLVE and sets out the service user identified recommendations for future work to improve and expand the groups and people getting involved with research.
CLICK HERE Count us in! full report Word version
CLICK HERE Count us in! full report PDF version
CLICK HERE Count us in! summary Word version
CLICK HERE Count us in! summary PDF version
Date added 29/9/2010
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Service users have not been adequately involved in discussions about he future funding of social care, yet they are the people most affected by these decisions. This Viewpoint reports the views of a diverse range of adult social care service users brought together to explore current proposals for funding social care.
Click here to go to the 'Funding social care:what service users say' page
A new study for the first time reports what service users want for future social care and how they think it can be achieved. Findings are presented from a national consultation event jointly organised by Brunel University and the Commission for Social Care Inspection. Shaping Our Lives supported the involvement of service users and the event was also supported by 18 major social care organisations, bringing together key policymakers and a wide range of service users.
One year in, the government’s three year plan for the radical transformation of social care to personalisation, is overshadowed by inadequate funding and recession. How is the momentum for change to be maintained and what do service users want that change to look like?
Service users identify a radical and coherent programme for reform that goes far beyond the expansion of personal budgets, demanding:
Co-author Peter Beresford is Chair of Shaping Our Lives and Professor of Social Policy, Brunel University and a long term user of mental health services.
Authors: Peter Beresford and Frances Hasler
Forewords by: Dame Denise Platt and Chris Jenks, Vice Chancellor, Brunel University
Published by: Brunel University Press, April 2009
ISBN: 978-1-902316-62-8
114 pages
With Easyread Summary
To download a PDF version please click here
To download a word version please click here
In March 2008 Shaping Our Lives was commissioned by Cumbria County Council to find out what residents of six residential care homes thought about the Council's proposals for modernising the homes. We analysed the results of a wide ranging public survey and spoke to all the residents of the care homes who wanted to participate in the consultation. We worked alongside an advocacy organisation, Advocacy Experience, to ensure that the older people had every opportunity to make their voices heard. For a brief report please see the Summer 2008 newsletter, pages 8 and 9. Click here if you would like to read the full report.
15 people took part in a consultation to find out more about service users' views about the registration of domiciliary care workers who work through agencies. The General Social Care Council is using the findings to inform a consultation with a wider range of stakeholders.
The results of the Shaping Our Lives discussion group will be made available when the findings of the full consultation are published. Please contact us if you would like us to get in touch with updates of when this might be.
We worked on with the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King’s College London to help produce a Practice Guide for the Social Care Institute for Excellence on the participation of service users in social care. To have a look at the Guide please click here.
A collaboration with the Edward Lear Foundation – a disability think-tank, independent of the Disability Rights Commission or any other organisation – to identify the barriers faced by disabled people, as a basis for a regular survey which will enable the Commission to check whether the Disability Discrimination Act is leading to real improvements for disabled people in the areas that really matter to us.
