Reflexivity and participation in communities PT

Merchants Quay Ireland is a voluntary organisation providing services to people who are homeless and those struggling with addiction https://mqi.ie/about-us/. This visit highlighted the importance of integrated and seamless service provision when aspiring for person-centered care. For MQI, this took 20 years to achieve to ensure service users weren’t ‘falling through the cracks’- they had to start ‘outside the system’ and fill in the gaps between service users and other services. Voluntary service provider identity has helped maintain a critical element of their bridging capacity and the ability of the service to be immediate, flexible and responsive to changing needs in the service user population ‘a laboratory where the boundaries of what is acceptable, and what needs to be connected, is being experimented with’ (Field Work Participant).

The visit stimulated reflections about how we define ‘participants.’ An ecological systems framing is helpful in terms of differing levels of participation by service users, local neighbourhood, and community. This visit raised questions of changing attitudes to social work and impact on ‘who is the expert’ within the context of service users as experts of their own lived experience as well as the image and culture of service- do service users feel protected and cared for? Social networks and outreach agencies are more important and relevant to those who are more vulnerable. Also, issues of class, gender, ethnicity, structural issues, anti-oppressive practice, and intersectionality should be considered. Influencing factor of leadership styles on participation- policy/ways of working-mutual respect-team ethics. Impact of the structure of systems and issue of health and social care divide.