Back from the second workshop and spending some time on thinking about the workshop, the speakers etc.
The first speaker / presenter was Peter Beresford’s presentation on user involvement in research This was thought provoking in a professional and personal basis. He came across as someone who talked from professional and personal experience as a user of mental health services. He didn't use PowerPoint as he tries not to and only uses it when he feels it is relevant which is refreshing. He explained that user involvement is parallel to Action Research and that Action Research is concerned with action and research and that the one relates to and entails the other in some sort of dynamic relationship. Some of the things he mentioned included:
user involvement - how it challenges how we think and do things and the concerns it raises
collaboration and partnership
user control - the user initiates and controls.
I think research should be as he says
"concerned with changing lives not just data gathering"
His presentation reminded me of the paper I had recently read about 'Information literacy, intellectual impairment and the social agenda' by Anna Williamson in which she talks about her daughter.
'Her inability to read is not disability, disability is created by people not communicating with her in a way she can understand'
'You have a right to access and use information regardless of your (professionally evaluated) capacity to utilise information. It is OK to use books and libraries even if you can not read.'
