Sharing Power Integrating User Involvement and Multi-Agency Working to Improve Housing for Older People - Community Care Into Practice Series

This report explores the problems that exist in the areas of assessment, information provision and planning in the housing system for older people and identifies ways to address them. Through a series of interviews and workshops the researchers have established both the barriers to effective provision, and how a diverse range of stakeholders think these problems could be improved or avoided.  Sharing power: highlights key problems facing housing services for older people; presents a vision of 'ideal' housing services; proposes an innovative planning and management system; suggests a means to adapt these proposals for local use.  The report provides practical advice for all planners and managers who are concerned with enhancing the effectiveness of multi-agency working and user involvement. Although the system was developed for the planning and management of housing services for older people, it can be adapted and applied in any multi-agency setting.  Sharing power is essential reading for people working within the multi-agency planning of housing services and will also be of interest to anyone trying to understand and deal with the complex problems currently affecting housing services for older people. In particular, it highlights problems that affect many community care services, and will be relevant to anyone who is seeking to improve user involvement or multi-agency working in their local area.