Kolloquium User Involvement and Participation in Social Care

During the last two decades the position of social care users in the process of planning, delivering and evaluating personal social services has been increasingly questioned. Terms like 'empowerment', 'participation', 'involvement', 'enabling', 'self-determination', 'personalisation', 'customer orientation' and 'self-responsibility' have pervaded the public and academic debate in most advanced welfare states. Users - as co-, or even main producers of services - no longer are seen as passive clients. Rather, in markets or quasi-markets, many users decide on services they prefer ('choice'). Moreover, participation and complaints procedures ('voice') aim to make social care services more responsive and flexible. Some commentators view these developments as a shift of power from professionals to service users. Others raise critical questions concerning the underlying agenda of the 'enabling' or 'activating' state which might be more concerned with cost reduction and welfare state retrenchment. There is concern over vulnerable users being manipulated into a 'homo oeconomicus' who has to manage its own affairs. From this point of view, 'consumerism' appears as the opposite of traditional approaches of (social) 'citizenship' and 'democracy'. Maybe the picture is not as black and white as many assume. The aforementioned developments may include advantages and disadvantages, new opportunities as well as limits to empowerment. Some service users may be winners, others losers. Hence the challenge of understanding the tension field of citizenship and consumerism is considerable. The international workshop aims to provide insights into these issues throughout Europe. Participants of the workshop will present papers on different aspects of the theme. This may include theoretical debates, reform developments and national approaches in social care, or specific case examples. FB 04 Sozialwesen Uni Kassel WS 2009/2010 Lehrveranstaltungspool FB 04 Soziale Arbeit Prof. Dr. Bode Ingo