Leprosy
Mailing List – March 21st, 2008
Ref.: Participation
From: Butlin
Ruth C., Bangladesh
20.02.08
Dear
Dr Noto,
Many
leprosy projects nowadays recognize a need to have participation from
“beneficiaries” at all levels in their undertakings (i.e. in
planning, implementation, & monitoring). This is difficult in practice,
and sometimes attempts are abandoned despite an ideological commitment
to the concept.
It is not always clear what is
meant by “participation”, and various terms are used for the
individuals who are expected to “participate”: they may include
past users of services & current users, even potential (future)
users of the services, they may be referred to as “clients”, and
may sometimes be regarded as “consumers”. How to measure “success”
in facilitating participation
or how to quantify the benefits of participation is debatable. We would do well to learn from
others` experience, including the experiences of those who work
outside the leprosy field.
In
this context, I would like to draw attention of readers of the
“leprosy mailing list” to a most interesting recently-published
article by Fudge et al (1.) in the British Medical Journal, and the
accompanying editorial (2.).
This
article reports work with “survivors of stroke” who are a group
who have much in common with leprosy-affected people, there fore I
feel it is relevant even though it was carried out in England where
the cultural and economic situation
differs from that in most leprosy-endemic countries.
Thank
you,
Yours
sincerely,
C
Ruth Butlin
1.
“Assessing the promise of user involvement in health service
development: ethnographic study”. Nina Fudge Charles D A Wolfe,
Christopher McKevitt. BMJ (2008) vol 336, p 313- 317. (Also available
on line at BMJ 29th Jan 2008,
doi:10.1136/bmj.39456.552257.BE)
2.
“Involving users in developing health services - representation is
not enough: voices must be translated into action”. Gillian Craig.
BMJ (2008) vol 336 p 286-287 (on line at BMJ 29th jan 2008,
doi:10.1136/bmj.39462.59875.80)
