Denise Tanner

Involving Service Users in the Teaching and Learning of Social Work Students: Reflections on Experience

This article describes and reflects on a project to develop service user involvement in the teaching and learning of students on one social work degree course. It includes the perspectives of a service user who took a lead role in the project and a part‐time academic member of staff given a specific contract to develop the work. The aspects of the project discussed are: getting started; bringing people together; student learning from individual voices; and student learning from collective experiences. Achievements and obstacles are discussed and key points of learning noted.

Co-research with older people with dementia: Experience and reflections

Background There is growing evidence that people with dementia want to participate in research and benefit from their involvement. However, little attention has been given to date to the potential to involve people with dementia as co-researchers, not just participants. Aims The paper discusses the implications for people with dementia of involvement in research as co-researchers. Method Older people with dementia participated in planning the research methods, conducting interviews and making sense of the findings. Results The project found that it is possible to involve older people with dementia in a meaningful way in research processes and that both co-researchers and participants can benefit significantly from their participation. Conclusions The project has wider implications for the development of participatory research with people with dementia and for interventions based on peer support.

Co-research with older people: Perspectives on impact

Although research in partnership with older people has been slower to develop than that with some other service user ‘groups’, there are a growing number of health and social care studies that have involved older people as co-researchers. We build on this existing evidence by addressing two key areas. First, despite the growth of participatory research with older people generally, some groups tend to be excluded. We focus particularly on a project in which older people with dementia and older people from a black and minority ethnic community were involved as co-researchers. They worked with academic researchers in all stages of the research process, exploring other older people’s experiences of transitions between care services. Second, recent literature suggests a lack of critical evaluation of involvement, arguing that researchers tend to emphasise the positives on the basis of retrospective narrative accounts of the process, rather than critically appraising the impact of involvement. This article offers a critical account of the impact of a participatory approach at different stages of a research project, evaluating this from the perspective of different stakeholders. In so doing, we engage with incisive critiques which claim that, far from empowering service users, much service user involvement activity contributes to their oppression. We conclude that participatory research with marginalised older people has the potential to achieve meaningful change at both individual and social levels. However, in view of its dangers and limitations, we argue the need for the impact of participatory research to be carefully evaluated from the perspectives of all parties in the process.

Identity, selfhood and dementia: messages for social work

Dementia has been identified as a policy priority area for the European Union (EU). Given projected figures on the global increase in dementia over the next few decades, working with people with dementia is likely to become an even more prominent area of activity for social workers in older peoples services. Recent research has begun to engage with the subjective experiences of people with dementia and there is considerable focus within nursing literature on their active efforts to maintain identity and selfhood. However, these issues have received little attention within the domain of social work. This paper reviews recent research on the subjective experiences of people with dementia and discusses the implications for social work in relation to: early intervention; communication and assessment, and support arrangements. Based on experience in England, it is argued that the current policy and practice context constrains social works ability to respond to these issues and that a supportive organisational context, as well as high levels of skill, time and commitment, are required if concepts of personhood and citizenship are to have meaning in practice.

Look after yourself: active ageing, individual responsibility and the decline of social work with older people in the UK

The idea of active ageing retains a broad appeal and has a global reach, particularly through the influence of the World Health Organisation (WHO). However, in practice it has been the subject of criticism. In this article, it is argued that the incorporation of active ageing into the policy agendas of the welfare systems for older people should be understood by reference to the perceived effects of demographic trends on demand for services. In the context of the British welfare system, the active ageing agenda has become inextricably linked with the broader policy agenda to reduce older peoples call on public resources in order to manage the increasing proportions of older people in the British population. The implications of these developments for social work are significant.

Managing the ageing experience : learning from older people

Introduction Starting from lives Setting the scene Keeping going Staying me The slippery slope Sustaining the self Destinations and directions.

‘Paying our own way’: Application of the capability approach to explore older people’s experiences of self-funding social care:

Adult social care policy in England is premised on the concept of personalisation that purports to place individuals in control of the services they receive through market-based mechanisms of support, such as direct payments and personal budgets. However, the demographic context of an ageing population and the economic and political context of austerity have endorsed further rationing of resources. Increasing numbers of people now pay for their own social care because either they do not meet tight eligibility criteria for access to services and/or their financial means place them above the threshold for local authority-funded care. The majority of self-funders are older people. Older people with complex and changing needs are particularly likely to experience difficulties in fulfilling the role of informed, proactive and skilled navigators of the care market. Based on individual interviews with older people funding their own care, this article uses a relational-political interpretation (Deneulin, 2011) of the capability approach (CA) to analyse shortfalls between the policy rhetoric of choice and control and the lived experience of self-funding. Whilst CA, like personalisation, is seen as reflecting neo-liberal values, we argue that, in its relational-political form, it has the potential to expose the fallacious assumptions on which self-funding policies are founded and to offer a more nuanced understanding of older people’s experiences.

Opening communicative space: what do co-researchers contribute?:

Current participatory research literature describes different approaches to involving service users in research, draws out lessons to be learned from the process and begins to address the difficult question of the impact of service user involvement on the research outcomes. However, very limited attention has been given to analysing in detail ‘what goes on’ in interviews carried out by service users or considering what difference their interactions make to the interview content and process. This article draws on principles of conversation analysis (CA) and member categorisation analysis (MCA) to examine how co-researchers and participants practically accomplish research interviews. Using Habermas’s distinction between communicative and strategic action as a framework, the article addresses the questions of whether and how co-researchers open communicative space in semi-structured interviews. Two dimensions are highlighted in the analysis: co-researchers’ interviewing skills and their ability to forge connections with participants. It is concluded that both components are necessary to open communicative space and generate co-produced knowledge. This detailed empirically-grounded analysis of co-researcher/participant interactions is both innovative and significant in enhancing understanding of co-researcher contributions to participatory research.

Sustaining the self in the “fourth age”: a case study

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illuminate from the perspective of an older person (Harriet) the factors that support and jeopardise mental well-being in the fourth age. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on unstructured narrative interviews with an older woman who was originally interviewed for a previous research study 15 years ago. At that time she was aged 82; she is now aged 97. This paper explores themes of change and continuity in her experience of ageing with a view to re-evaluating the model of sustaining the self-developed in the earlier study and comparing the findings with current conceptions of the fourth age. Findings Harriet’s previous efforts to remain independent have been replaced by an acceptance of dependency and diminished social relationships and activity. However, she retains significant threads of continuity with her earlier life and employs cognitive strategies that enable contentment. Her experience of advanced old age fits conceptions of neither the third nor fourth age, indicating the need for more sophisticated and nuanced understandings. Originality/value The paper is original in exploring the lived experience of someone in advanced age across a 15 year time period. Its value lies in rendering visible the factors that have promoted and/or undermined her mental well-being and in generating insights that can be applied more generally to experiences of advanced age.

Enhancing Older People’s Mental Wellbeing Through Research: A Case Study

This chapter is based on a research project looking at the experiences of older people moving into or between dementia services offered by social care agencies or the NHS. The research was underpinned by a participatory research approach which included employing older people as coresearchers to work alongside academic researchers in different stages of the research process. This chapter shows how involvement in the research project can enhance the mental wellbeing of both older coresearchers and research participants.