Issues of power in service user and carer involvement: partnership, processes and outcomes

Our experience of partnership working on a Scottish project on service user and carer involvement in social work education has been a deeply politicising one. First-hand encounters with power enacted at various sites of service user and carer involvement across national, institutional and local university levels have demonstrated to us that 'partnership working that pushes at the orthodox structures of power is difficult' (Barnes et al., 2006, p. 434). In this chapter we provide a commentary on service user and carer involvement in social services work, in social work education in particular, with a focus on the enactment of power. We explore the nature of partnership arrangements with service users and carers; examine the processes through which partnerships are navigated; and review what is known about the outcomes of such partnerships on social work knowledge and education, and ultimately on social work practice itself.