The following Conference announcement and call for papers may be of interest to you and your colleagues.  Please feel free to forward to anyone who may be interested.  Many thanks.

 

Authenticity to Action - Involving Service Users and Carers in Higher Education

3 Day International Conference

7 - 9 November 2007

Grange Over Sands, Cumbria

 

We are pleased to announce an exciting international conference focused on the involvement of health and social care service users in higher education. The conference welcomes contributions and participation from all stakeholders:

 

• Service users and carers
• Academics
• Students

 The ways in which service users and carers might participate within universities are many and varied, and we welcome contributions that relate to them all. These include participation in:

 

• Teaching and learning
• Research
• Strategic planning
• Wider community engagement
• Developing access

 We hope that the conference will build upon the successful first 'Where's The Patient Voice in Health Professional Education' Conference, November 3-5 2005, Vancouver, Canada hosted by the University of British Columbia www.health-disciplines.ubc.ca/DHCC/

 

The conference is supported by the work of The Comensus Project at the University of Central Lancashire. For more information visit our web site at www.uclan.ac.uk/comensus

 

The conference will bring together service users and carers, students and academics with a view to sharing different forms of knowledge and expertise in a mutually supportive atmosphere. We are working towards seeking funding to make bursaries available to support attendance of individual students and service users/carers. We are also looking for organisations interested in making a contribution to the fund to support bursaries.

 

We aim to make the whole conference as interactive as possible and accessible to all participants. Participants are encouraged to be prepared to present their work and facilitate sessions in plain language.

  

CONFERENCE THEMES

• Principles and practice of community engagement for universities
• Supporting and sustaining user and carer involvement
• Involvement in teaching, research and institutional decision making: commonalities and differences
• Linking policy to practice
• Drivers and barriers
• Making sense of involvement: philosophies and critiques
• Methodologies for evaluation and development
• Impact and outcomes
• Resources for involvement
• The value of involvement
• Payment and volunteering
• Authenticity versus incorporation
• History of involvement

 CALL FOR PAPERS:

 

The Programme Committee invites proposals for contributions to the conference. These contributions are sought in a number of different formats:

 

SHOWCASES

PAPERS

FILMS

WORKSHOPS

MODELS & STRATEGY GROUPS

 

Making the most of the conference

We wish the conference to be truly involving of all the stakeholder groups. For this reason we do not want anybody to be excluded from making a contribution. If you don't have a paper to present, why not think about facilitating a workshop to showcase relevant experiences. We encourage all participants to present their work in an accessible, jargon-free format. We are particularly keen that novice conference attendees are able to participate fully in the proceedings. We welcome presentations and workshops that are led by service users, carers and students.

  

Abstracts of between 300-500 words are required for the following formats:

 

• SHOWCASES
• PAPERS
• WORKSHOPS
• POSTERS

 For details about specific requirements for abstracts, please contact Liz Kelly [log in to unmask]

Deadline for submission of abstracts: FRIDAY 23^RD FEBRUARY 2007

 

Please note that all presenters will be required to register for the conference and pay the fee which will be #350 plus VAT for the three days (non residential).

  

Conference Fee

Full Conference Package

'         Three-day conference including lunch and refreshments throughout each day Cost #350 plus VAT = #411.25     

Single day attendance including lunch and refreshments for one days attendance Cost #125 plus VAT = #146.88           

 

For Further Details about the Conference, Call for Papers and a Booking form, contact:  

 

Liz Kelly, Faculty of Health, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK

Email [log in to unmask]    

Tel: +44 (0)1772 893809     

Fax: +44 (0)1772 892995

www.uclan.ac.uk/healthconf