Participation

Leprosy Mailing List – March 21st, 2008

Ref.: Participation
From: Butlin Ruth C., Bangladesh
20.02.08Dear 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)