Catherine Durose, Liz Richardson, Helen Dickinson and Iestyn Williams
Involving communities, citizens and service users in the design and delivery of public services has long been a key aim of government policy and arguably has it never been more…
Abstract
Purpose
Involving communities, citizens and service users in the design and delivery of public services has long been a key aim of government policy and arguably has it never been more important than within times of austerity. Yet, whilst acknowledging the importance of engagement, many health and social care organisations struggle with this in practice. This paper sets out some guiding principles for engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on conversations at a series of events in 2013 which brought together researchers, those charged with delivering on government policy at the local level and active citizens, to debate and explore evidence and practice on how to involve and mobilise citizens in local decision making in a time of austerity. Learning is distilled from these events to provide a useful guide for working effectively with communities.
Findings
As with any issue as complex as this, there is no magic bullet, quick fix, simple check-list or solve-all tool. Like doing anything worthwhile, working with communities is difficult, takes time and is at its core about building relationships. However, this does not mean that every attempt to design involvement processes needs to start entirely from scratch. There is a wealth and diversity of experience in designing and developing involvement mechanisms to draw upon.
Originality/value
This paper will provide a helpful guide to those who are about to embark on a programme of engagement or who are presently involved in engagement activities with communities, citizens and service users.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to explore and problematizes one of the oft-cited reasons why the implementation of public policy and other development initiatives goes wrong �…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore and problematizes one of the oft-cited reasons why the implementation of public policy and other development initiatives goes wrong – namely that there is a mismatch or antagonistic relationship between street-level worker’s decisions and priorities on the one hand and on the other hand the policy-makers’ or administrators’ directives and priorities.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper builds on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork set in a Danish municipal unit which administered the sickness benefit legislation.
Findings
Through the reading of an ethnographic example of implementation of labour market policy this paper suggests that when policy invariably is distorted at the administrative level it is not necessarily due to lack of will among street-level workers to comply with legislation or centrally devised directives but rather because: in practice, planning and implementation are concurrent processes that continuously feed into each other; and that the concerns and the “local knowledge and practice” that guide planning-implementation do not belong to individual people but are dynamic perspectives that individual people might take up in certain situations.
Originality/value
This challenges conventional descriptions of street-level workers as a distinct group of people with distinctive concerns and attitudes to their work. The paper suggests instead the metaphor “vector of concern” to capture the way street-level workers’ changes of perspectives might cause interventions to disintegrate and evolve in potentially conflicting directions.
Details
Keywords
– The purpose of this paper is to consider the dynamics of submitting arts-based research in a climate that is dominated, in the UK, by the social sciences.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider the dynamics of submitting arts-based research in a climate that is dominated, in the UK, by the social sciences.
Design/methodology/approach
It begins by taking a view on arts-based research, considering mainly Eisner and Dewey but exploring the possibilities of other forms such as baroque research. It goes on to look at some examples of arts-based research that has been carried out, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The authors conclude by saying that interdisciplinary research, while being encouraged by research councils, is also made more difficult by these same research councils’ funding structures.
Findings
The authors consider that this has an effect on defining what educational research is and could be. The authors argue that this is important not only in relation to the range of disciplinary perspectives that can be drawn upon within educational settings, for example, the need to engage with disciplines such as English, History, Philosophy, Music and Fine Art, but also in relation to methodological understandings of how research should be conducted within educational settings.
Originality/value
The research studies are arts based but with an original educational orientation.