ABSTRACT
Despite the growing political and research interest in user involvement (Kemshall and Littlechild 2000), detailed and critical accounts of projects working with older people based on the direct experiences of people who took part are still relatively scarce (Warren and Maltby 2000). This chapter assesses the background to, and processes and outcomes of, involvement in research through the experiences of women aged 50+ from a range of communities who participated in the Sheffield-based Older Women's Lives and Voices: Participation and Policy in Sheffield (OWLV) project. The main focus is on a small group of volunteer researchers, recruited from the project participants, who worked with the academic researchers in carrying out one-to-one life story interviews with the remaining older women participants. The chapter considers aspects of training, interviewing, and dissemination activities, and their subsequent impact on the research design of the project as well as the entire project team. Highlighted are opportunities and limitations shaping involvement of this nature, and the contribution it can make to both the development of methods and the quality of findings is critically assessed.
