Whose Shoes? Exploring new perspectives on more citizen-centered social care

Introduction

The personalisation agenda necessitates thinking about public services in a totally different way - click here for more information on personalisation. It provides an opportunity to make social care services more responsive and flexible to an individual service user’s needs and desires rather than being restricted to the mass production of rigid services. This fundamental change in care provision requires a transformation of the values, norms, attitudes, and behaviours of all those involved in supporting personalisation. Significantly, personalisation has different implications for providers, commissioners, front-line staff, managers and also the  ‘experts by experience’ - the people who use services and their carers.

Where divergent viewpoints or differences of understanding exist, this is a recipe for alienation, conflict, inefficiency and limited progress towards the key goal of personalisation:  tailoring services to reflect the outcomes chosen by individuals. This case study will highlight how the Whose Shoes? interactive learning and engagement tool has been utilised by Leicestershire County Council to facilitate this culture change by enabling the key players in the service journey to understand each other’s different perspectives and work together to co-produce sustainable solutions.

Watch this video below for an introduction to the Whose Shoes? tool.

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