INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH, POLICY, AND PRACTICE CONFERENCE
Responsive social services: strengthening the impact of user participation
Bucharest, 22-23 April 2024
SUBMIT ABSTRACT
1 February 2024: deadline for abstracts
This international conference explores how social services can be more responsive to input from people who use their services. The aim is to learn how democratic goals of participation, co-creation and co-production can be fully realized within social services, especially in the context of increasing social inequalities, financial pressures, pandemic-related halts to participation and greater use of digital approaches in the social sector.
This two-day event is organized within the framework of the Horizon Europe research and innovation project ‘Increasing responsiveness to citizen’s voice in social services across Europe’, http://www.responsive-europe.eu/. It focuses on social services that seek to reduce vulnerability and promote social inclusion, including disability, domestic abuse, mental health, family services, child protection, youth work, homelessness, housing, community work, addiction services, poverty and emergency support, refugee action and social care.
Contributions are invited that shed light on processes of utilizing input from people to shape frontline practice, organisational development, policy and governance processes. Work-based on the perspectives of people using social services is particularly welcome. The conference aims for a diverse range of participants, including people who use social services, activists, practitioners, policy officials and researchers.
For research presentations, the conference is open to all disciplines, including social and political theory, organisational management, social work, sociology, social movement studies, social pedagogy, gender studies, psychology, social policy, urban studies and economics.
CONFERENCE FORMAT
The conference’s language is English. Participation is free-of-charge and light refreshments will be provided during the event. Participants will need to cover their own travel and accommodation.
The conference will include keynotes, round tables, workshops and parallel panels to encourage exchange, reflection and networking.
The conference aims to be inclusive and information on accessibility requirements will be requested at the abstract submission stage to help with planning (e.g. barrier-free access, captioning, sign language).
Applications can be made for 15-20 minute presentations. It is possible to present practice projects, policy discussions or research findings. Presentations from any country or geographical region are welcome. There is no prescribed list of themes for presentations, but possible ideas include:
User perspectives on the impact of participation and co-production processes at individual case, organisational and policy levels.
Shared and transparent decision-making in social services.
Using feedback from users to improve social services.
Participatory and co-production mechanisms within individual social services and at policymaking level.
User-led efforts to challenge social services, including public campaigns, policy advocacy, protests, social media and activist art production.
Building an organisational culture that values participation within social services.
User-led services, peer work and experts-by-experience within social services.
Co-production during the COVID-19 pandemic.
User participation in planning and quality assurance processes.
Legal, policy and organisational frameworks for utilising feedback from users of social services.
Theorising the impact of user participation within social services.
The conference is co-hosted by CFCECAS, Horizon Europe project RESPONSIVE and the International Federation of Social Workers Europe (IFSW Europe).
The conference is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the participants only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor REA can be held responsible for them.
If you have any questions, we would love to hear from you. Please feel free to use the email address to reach out to us:
communicationresponsive@gmail.com
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