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Worldwide, there has been a growth in service user involvement in education and research in recent years. This handbook is the first book which identifies what is happening in different regions of the world to provide different countries and client groups with the opportunity to learn from each other. The book is divided into five sections: Section One examines service user involvement in context exploring theoretical issues which underpin service user involvement. In Section Two we focus on the state of service user involvement in human services education and research across the globe including examples of innovative practice, but also identifying examples of where it is not happening and why. Section Three offers more detailed examination of such involvement in a wide range of professional education learning settings. Section Four focuses on the involvement of service users in research involving a wide range of service user groups and situations. Lastly, Section Five explores future challenges for education and research to ensure involvement remains meaningful. The book includes forty-eight chapters, including seventeen case-studies, from all regions of the world, this is the first book to both highlight the subject’s methodological and theoretical issues and give practical examples in education and research for those wishing to engage in this field. It will be of interest to all service users, scholars and students of social work, nursing, occupational therapy, and other human service subjects.

This article challenges the terms we use to describe the relationship between those who assess and commission services and those who are the recipient of those services. In particular, the article identifies the different terms that have been used in British social work, including ‘client’, ‘customer’, ‘consumer’, ‘service user’ and ‘expert by experience’, highlighting their assumptive worlds and the relationships the terms suggest and signify. Service user (the most popular term at present) is highlighted and critically analysed and found to be increasingly problematic and unable to describe the complexities of the service–recipient relationship. Alternative terms are discussed and found wanting, whilst a possible way forward is suggested to avoid the negative connotations of any one particular term.

Service user research has increasingly become a significant development on the research landscape. This article seeks to critically examine this development and to identify ways in which service user research can retain its honesty and avoid the twin dangers of either becoming a tokenistic exercise or being seen as a panacea. In particular the article highlights issues concerning our conceptions of service users, recognising both the benefits and costs of service user involvement in research and begins to open up discussions on the contribution of service user research to knowledge development. The article also argues that we need to subject such research to the same standards of scrutiny and critique we would apply to other research approaches if service user research involvement in research is going to develop further.

This article seeks to contribute to the debate concerning the benefits and costs of involving young service users in research. The paper locates involvement within a continuum of consultation, collaboration and user-controlled research. The mandate for children and young people’s involvement is identified. In particular, the paper focuses on the benefits and costs in relation to: research and development, research dissemination and service development, service users and researchers. The paper does not suggest that these benefits and costs can be measured arithmetically but argues that if the costs in terms of resources, training, support, timescale and remuneration are not addressed, the research will be undermined and in danger of becoming tokenistic. The article argues that the involvement of young service users as co-researchers is worthwhile, but that it should not be entered into lightly and that further work needs to be undertaken on which parts of the process young service users can be included in and where their involvement results in change in service delivery or service outcomes.

The global proliferation of social media has transformed online platforms -- once used almost exclusively by young, tech-savvy Millennials -- into transcontinental mediums of communication and expression. The social and cultural impact has been truly prolific. But until recently, social media's economic impact was less clear. Now, though, myriad evidence indicates the potential commercial advantages stemming from social media's use. But while social media's place in commerce is now established, the legal consequences of its misuse in the workplace are nebulous. Courts and legislatures have struggled to balance the competing interests of business autonomy and employees' privacy rights, ultimately resulting in a patchwork of judicial holdings and reactive legislation. This legal ambiguity has prompted a recent trend in employment-contract drafting that threatens to disrupt social media's market potential. Coupled with a balancing of the equities approach, an analysis of pertinent principles of contract, privacy, and tort law shows that employees' rights should prevail.

This article reports on the evaluation of practice learning opportunities for student social workers within 'non-traditional' placements provided by a major children's charity in England, Scotland and Wales between 2010 and 2012. The student social workers undertook a well-being role within the project and the research here reports on the charity's ability to provide a twelve-week programme through the use of delivery partners. In particular, the research highlights the experiences and perspectives of student social workers, project leaders and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to meet the six key roles, and demonstrate working with the legal framework, risk awareness, and management and assessment skills. The article also considers how the developments in England will impact upon such placements in the future and their implications for the project. Lastly, the article suggests that these placements are not second best, but different and raises the more fundamental question as to whether it is becoming easier to practise social work in placements such as these as opposed to those in statutory social service placements.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the potential and limits of the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs) in supporting adults with social care needs who also experience domestic violence. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports on a scoping review as part of a wider research project entitled: to identify and assess the effectiveness of social care's contribution to the development of MARAC and the protection of adults facing domestic violence. Findings – An understanding of the workings of MARAC could support social care practice with high-risk victims of domestic violence. However, the conception of risk assessment and management central to the process also poses ethical dilemmas for practitioners. Practical implications – Social care is ideally placed to support, in an holistic manner, a group of vulnerable service-users with complex needs. However, the current climate of austerity could jeopardise this work. Originality/value – There is little in the professional and academic press on the MARAC process and particularly in relation to adults and older people. This paper alerts the practice community to the process, its historical development and characteristics and implications for practice.

Home-Start is a family support charity whose delivery model is a national and global example of how targeted volunteer support can benefit parents, carers and children experiencing difficult times, in both domestic and other spaces. Parenting support continues to be a key policy area for the current UK government and other policy-makers across the Global North. In this article we draw on qualitative findings from an ethnography of a Home-Start organisation in a city in the north of England. The theoretical framework of liminality, a space between social structures, allows for an appreciation of the ambiguous nature of supporting parents in the private domestic spaces, and the ways in which this support enables parents and families to move forward. The article has broader implications for global social care and social work practice, specifically demonstrating the importance of the relationships between parents and volunteers in the every day, and contributes to the literature on liminality.

This chapter considers how the language we use to describe those on the receiving end of service provision is imbued with meaning and power and has consequences for those who provide and receive services. The chapter reviews and reflects on an article written ten years previously, but places this within the current government-chosen austerity and the increasing neo-liberalisation hegemony of social work practice. The chapter argues that service users, experts by experience or clients are more than the services they receive, active contributors to their own story, and that we need to remind ourselves that none of us are uni-dimensional.

Journal of Social Work Education From the Editor-Writing a Good Peer Review to Improve Scholarship: What Editors Value and Authors Find Helpful