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This collection draws together experiences and perspectives on user involvement from user activists, academics and practitioners. It includes chapters that focus on autonomous collective action by disabled people, mental health service users and others; action within the health and social care service delivery system to influence services; and user-led and collaborative research designed to promote ways of understanding the world from service users' perspectives. The book includes examples relating to the involvement of young people, young mothers, older people, people living with cancer and woman with alcohol problems, in addition to the experiences of disabled people and mental health service users. Chapters offer conflicting views, for example on the issue of whether the impacts of involvement can and should be ‘measured’. Some chapters offer a historical perspective, arguing for the need to understand both autonomous action and official involvement as interconnected processes of social change. The book highlights both the official acceptance of user involvement as a mainstream activity and the continuing challenges experienced by those seeking not only to have a voice, but also to achieve recognition for their knowledge and understanding. It concludes with a discussion of the continuing need for ‘critical perspectives’, both in the conduct of user involvement and in analyses of it. The book also argues for the necessity of including different perspectives in this process.

Professionals involved in person centred professions are working in increasingly complex and demanding environments. Many professional bodies have established codes of conduct and ethics for their members which by and large function to protect the public interest. These codes provide guiding principles of practice which are open to interpretation in their application. At times, professionals experience a disjuncture between personal, professional and interprofessional ethics. The aim of this book is to spearhead debate about these disjunctures and ethical dilemmas in an informed manner. It goes beyond looking at professional ethics and focuses on the dynamics of the professionals’ interaction with the ethical code of their profession and further interaction between this and others’ professional ethics. This book uses research, theory and practice examples to understand the dynamics of personal, professional and interprofessional ethics within the context of several person centred professions. The multiple contexts are brought about by the range of professions, namely educational psychology, occupational psychology, education, social work (generic, criminal justice and child protection), policing, law, health care in hospitals (nursing and midwifery) and voluntary organisations (mental health, trauma and grief, cancer), occupational therapy, clinical psychiatry, palliative care in organisational and community settings, and community learning and development. Perspectives of these 40 authors from four continents, Europe, Asia, Australia and North America, provide further richness. The book is structured into six sections and comprises 20 chapters, with most chapters bringing diverse perspectives through teams of authors from different professional backgrounds or countries.

New Labour's modernisation agenda has produced an avalanche of change that has posed formidable challenges for everyone involved in social work, whether as service users, practitioners, or managers. This book provides a radical appraisal of the far-reaching changes in their theoretical, historical, and policy contexts. It is organised into three sections that consider: the inter-relationship of modernisation and managerialism, modernisation's impact on service users, and the ways in which social workers and front-line managers seek to exercise professional discretion for the benefit of service users within a workplace culture of intensified scrutiny and control. Analysis of a range of key developments in all three areas reveals the modernisation agenda as complex and contested. The book's three sections cover the main issues of the modernisation agenda.

Furthering social justice and human rights is a fundamental principle underlying the social work profession. Engaging in social policy formulation processes is a major route through which social workers can realise this goal. This type of social work activity has been termed “policy practice”. The aim of this book is to shed light on policy practice in social work discourse, education and practice in eight liberal democracies. This is the first effort to undertake a cross-national study of social worker engagement in social policy formulation processes. The book offers insights into questions such as: What is the importance attributed to social worker involvement in policy change in the social work discourse and education in different countries? Does social work education train social workers to influence social policy? And, how do social workers influence social policy in various national settings?