Social Policy, Service Users and Carers: Lived Experiences and Perspectives

This textbook offers a unique perspective on social policies by incorporating the voices and experiences of service users and carers directly into the content. It highlights key lessons and encourages meaningful involvement and co-production in policymaking.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 226 pages
Publication date: 13 January 2022
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This comprehensive textbook offers a profound exploration of the tangible impact that social policies have on service users and carers. While the involvement of service users and carers has gained increasing prominence in social policy over recent years, it is seldom that their perspectives extend beyond mere consultation to genuine and meaningful engagement and co-production. What sets this book apart is its unique feature of ten substantive co-produced chapters, authored by service users and carers who possess firsthand experiences of social policies. These chapters vividly recount lived experiences ranging from direct payments, domestic violence and abuse, the care of looked-after children, fostering, long-term health and social care, welfare-to-work initiatives, mental health, the transition from care, and caregiving.

Drawing upon these profound lived experiences, the textbook identifies crucial lessons that hold significant relevance to social policy. It serves as a catalyst for transformative changes, aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of these policies in supporting service users and carers. Our hope is that this book will resonate with academics, policymakers, students, and practitioners alike, while also encouraging service users and carers to share their own narratives, contributing to the further shaping of social policy.

Weight: 378g
Dimension: 154 x 232 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030698751
Edition number: 1st ed. 2021