ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the debates and dilemmas in involving community partners in health and social care as partners in the delivery of services. It explores the principles and barriers to effective involvement, the dangers of tokenism, and ask what constitutes 'meaningful' involvement, under the principle that true involvement should be transformative for all. The chapter aims to foreground and enrich some of the arguments for co-production and client involvement with a more robust theoretical, empirical, ontological, pedagogical and epistemological examination of the process of knowledge creation and the impact that co-production, in particular, seeks to make. Many care initiatives, from developing psychologically informed environments, to recovery models, tend to see client involvement using this rationale as a lens. Barriers for workers seemed to be a practical focus and wish to get on with the job rather than 'have all this talking', seeing securing accommodation as their primary function.
