3. Emergent themes and practice guidelines

3.7. The avoidance of tokenism through peer advocacy and building systems of social justice

As discussed above, the issue of tokenism was centrally raised during the IP and is related to the overall theme of representation. An alternative approach, which lays the ground for forms of collaboration based on a greater balance of power and influence is that of peer advocacy in a range of educational, research and practice contexts. Where it has been developed as a recognised form of self-representation by service user groups, such groups, can be effective in building relationships with academics, students, practitioners, and researchers and reduce the risk of participation in teaching and research becoming tokenistic. It is important that professional organisations and professionals find mechanisms to deal with this issue. The following set of principles and processes, used by the Irish Advocacy Network (www.irishadvocacynetwork.com) in the context of mental health could be modified for different country contexts:

  • Making information accessible to service users in the form that they determine.
  • Promoting discussions among service users that provide options they consider relevant for their life situation.
  • Facilitating decision-making by the individual over matters that affect their life situation.
  • Supporting mental health service users to be heard and ensuring that what they say influences the decisions of service providers.
  • Promoting self-advocacy through empowerment.
  • Ensuring that service users are active and informed participants in their treatment and care.
  • An advocacy service provided to people with mental health difficulties by people who have experienced similar difficulties themselves can reinforce principles of authentic empathy.
  • These approaches can deliver different types of social justice for people with mental health problems, including cognitive, epistemic justice and testimonial injustice, leading to an end of moral injury

Theme 7) Case Study Example: Responding to Tokenism

Tokenism can be addressed in research and practice contexts when the potential for tokenism is acknowledged from the outset and service user participation is not determined or defined by the researcher or social worker but rather is defined and negotiated/renegotiated by the service users themselves. The case study of the SAOL project illustrated the importance of reciprocal participation, the dangers of tokensim and how academics/researchers can also be disempowered by the structures they must work within. This was illustrated during Covid19 when teaching input by the SAOL service users was reduced and service users challenged what they perceived to be the ‘tokenistic nature’ of their involvement with the students, demanding more meaningful input or withdrawal from the teaching programme. This triggered a complete review and re-evaluation of the nature of SAOL’s involvement resulting in the reintroduction of additional teaching hours and a new co-designed video assignment for the students that the service users helped to design and jointly grade, as well as the need for further engagement from the academic to help develop a research project with the service users examining their own human rights and social justice issues. In this way, a more authentic and mutually beneficial participation was created.