1. Introduction, Clive Sealey, Peter Unwin and Joy Fillingham.-
2. Co-production: Rationale, Processes and Application to this Book, Clive Sealey, Peter Unwin and Joy Fillingham.-
3. Living with Care Orders: Turning Pain into Passion - Francesca Crozier-Roche (Co-produced with Joy Fillingham).-
4. Improving Transitions for Independence to Adulthood for Care Leavers - Charles English-Peach (Co-produced by Clive Sealey).-
5. The Realities of Fostering in a Flawed System - Vivienne Tongue (Co-produced with Joy Fillingham).-
6. Benefits and Employment Support for Vulnerable and Disabled People - Joanne*, Becki Meakin and Jon Powton (Co-produced with Peter Unwin).-
7. Living with Long-Term Disability and Care – a Perspective on the Adequacy of Provision and Areas for Improvement - Julia Smith (Co-produced with Clive Sealey).-
8. Direct Payments: Rationalising, Processes and Improving- Mark Lynes (Co-produced with Clive Sealey).-
9. Children in Need/Looked After Children: Analysing the Adequacy of the Care System - Shereese Cooper and Dorothy*(Co-produced with Clive Sealey).-
10. Mental Health: Services and Struggles - Chantele Harvey-Head (Co-produced with Joy Fillingham).-
11. Lived Experiences of Domestic Abuse, Domestic Violence and Intimate Partner Violence - Janine*, Eva* and David Gowar (Co-produced with Peter Unwin).-
12. Informal Carers and Caring - Christine Ransome-Wallis, Bob Conner and Barbara Pugh (Co-produced with Peter Unwin).- 13. Social Policy, Service Users and Carers: Proposals for Improving Policy and Practice.
Clive Sealey is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Theory at the University of Worcester, UK
Joy Fillingham is Lecturer in Department of Social Work and Social Care, University of Birmingham, UK
Peter Unwin is Principal Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Worcester, UK
This textbook provides a greater understanding of the lived effect that social policies have on service users and carers. While service user and carer involvement has become more and more prominent in social policy over recent years, it is rarely the case that the perspectives of service users and carers goes beyond consultation to truly meaningful involvement and co-production. This book is unique in that it has ten substantive co-produced chapters with service users and carers who have direct lived experiences of social policies. The chapters include lived experiences of direct payments, domestic violence and abuse, looked after children, being a foster carer, receiving long term health and social care, welfare to work, mental health, the transition to leaving care and being a carer.
The ground-breaking textbook draws on these lived experiences to highlight key lessons that are relevant to social policy, and will provide an impetus towards changes to make such polices better support service users and carers. We hope that this book will inspire academics, policy makers, students and practitioners but, most importantly, it will encourage service users and carers to come forward with their own narratives to further shape social policy.