Involvement: lessons from experience - a personal journey

This article traces a personal journey in participation over half a century. It explores the origins of this journey, its beginnings in an in-depth local study of public participation in planning which set a broader agenda. It puts personal experience from a service user perspective in a broader research, ideological and policy context, explores the changing context of public and service user involvement; its widening scope and impact and developing understandings about it. The article highlights the emerging importance of inclusive involvement and ways of helping to achieve it as well as key innovations in participation – in its different aspects and policy fields. It considers different approaches to participation and introduces the idea of it as an interactionist project which addresses both the personal and political; biography and history.