Publisher's Synopsis
This report is based on work with service users in Shropshire and Sheffield. Looking at ideas on the future of rights and welfare from the point of view of users, rather than within professional debates, it highlights the importance of framing ideas of rights and welfare within the ideas that service users valued. It shows that users' own ideas were often based on very practical outcomes and concludes that there were worrying signs that users were being "over-consulted" with little or no real pay-back in terms of influencing the shape of services.;"Our voice in our future" includes accounts of similar work in Manchester, Wakefield, Waltham Forest and Hammersmith and Fulham and has a focus on issues for services users from ethnic communities. The report draws together two key issues in social care policy - user involvement and service outcomes - whilst highlighting the lack of structures for involvement in many areas and offering useful indicators on good practice in user involvement.
