I see that there is a conference coming up at UCLan in March though I am not involved in it. In practice, it may not be too late to submit an abstract.
“Conference Announcement and Call for Abstracts: Authenticity
to Action Conference, ‘Involve and Evolve’
Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th March 2015
Samlesbury Hotel
Preston New Road
Samlesbury
Preston
PR5 0UL
We
are pleased to invite you to an exciting two day conference focused on the involvement
of health and social care service users and carers in higher education. The theme
of the conference is to examine critically the depth and sphere of involvement and
to explore the impact that service users and carers have made to the quality of
scholarly and strategic activity within universities.
CONFERENCE
THEMES
A
number of key issues will be addressed, including:
Innovation
in service user and carer involvement
Positive
environments and growth for service user and carer involvement
Successful
service user and carer involvement
Strategic
advantages of service user and carer involvement
The
role of national regulatory and professional bodies – also panel discussion
International
service user/carer models of involvement
Closing
the gap – moving forward
Service
user/carer knowledge
Embracing
the digital environment
Researching
service user/carer involvement in education
Concepts
and contradictions ( e.g. authenticity vs reality, incorporation and co-option,
self-definition ) - also panel discussion
DIFFERENT
FORMATS
Conference
presentations have been organised in a number of different formats to enable as
many people as possible to become actively involved in debates, questions and interaction.
Different types of presentation will include:
SHOWCASES
– sessions that present the work of specific service user and carer involvement
initiatives within Higher Education Institutions, health and social care practice
and the voluntary sector. The emphasis will be on the practice of user and carer
involvement its impact and outcomes. These sessions will be of 60 minutes duration
and might involve a number of short stories that offer the experiences of project
participants from various perspectives (e.g. users, carers, academic staff, researchers,
students). Group discussion will be encouraged to explore, with presenters, possible
solutions to key problems identified or discussion of strategy. The emphasis will
be upon sharing experiences and learning from each other.
PAPERS
– these sessions will typically involve presentation of studies of user and carer
involvement in Higher Education. There will also be theoretical papers which present
critical thinking in relation to key conference themes. These sessions will be of
30 minute duration, with time for audience questions. Paper sessions have been organised
in groups of two that share common themes or address similar issues.
WORKSHOPS
– these sessions will maximise audience participation. Alternately, they may focus
upon key problems, opportunities or challenges within the field and attempt to draw
out audience contributions to addressing these issues. These sessions will be 60
minutes in length.
The
conference includes contributions and participation from all stakeholders:
Service
users and carers
Academics
Students
The
conference is supported by the work of Comensus. For more information visit the projects web site
at www.uclan.ac.uk/comensus
We
aim to make the whole conference as interactive as possible and accessible to all
participants. Participants have been encouraged to present their work and facilitate
sessions in plain language.
Making
the most of the conference
We
wish the conference to truly engage and involve 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 and carers.
We
are also planning a number of conference debates for the whole audience. These will allow us to explore together some of
the current issues and positions that impact on our work. We will provide a safe space for full and frank
open discussion.
Abstracts
Abstracts
of between 300-500 words are required. They
should be admitted by email tohealthconferences@uclan.ac.uk. The subject line of the email should clearly state
Authenticity to Action, and you should state whether you are submitting a Showcase,
Paper or Workshop. Please also send a short biography of authors. All abstracts will be reviewed by the conference
committee.
Deadline
for abstracts – Wednesday 17th December 2014
To
register your interest in the conference, or for further information, please contact
Liz Roberts, UCLan Conference & Events
Email:
healthconferences@uclan.ac.uk
Telephone: 01772 893809”
