This unique book brings together, for the first time, advocates and critics of the personalisation agenda in English social care services to debate key issues relating to personalisation. Perspectives from service users, practitioners, academics and policy commentators come together to give an account of the practicalities and controversies associated with the implementation of personalised approaches. The conclusion examines how to make sense of the divergent accounts presented, asking if there is a value-based approach to person-centred care that all sides share. Written in a lively and accessible way, practitioners, students, policy makers and academics in health and social care, social work, public policy and social policy will appreciate the interplay of rival arguments and the way that ambiguities in the care debate play out as policy ideas take programmatic form.

Personalization has become a social policy buzzword in the twenty-first century as many organizations move steadily away from one-size-fits-all models of service. In this provocative book, Peter Beresford is joined by other top academics to challenge the personalization agenda. Although critical of one-size-fits-all approaches, they contend that personalization turns service users into consumers who are shopping in a care market. This does not facilitate better attunement to user needs, they argue, but an increased commodification of care that actually channels large profits toward a decreasing number of providers at the expense of service quality. A timely debate in an era when public programs are deeply embattled, Personalisation is a careful work of critical policy assessment.

The principle of personalisation appears in a range of current debates among design professionals, healthcare providers and educationalists about the implications of new technologies and approaches to consumer sovereignty for 'mass' provision. The potential of new technologies implies systems of provision that offer bespoke support to their users, tailoring services and experiences to suit individual needs. The assumption that individual choice automatically increases wellbeing has underlain the re-design of public services. Ubiquitous personalisation in screen-based environments gives individuals the sense that their personality is reflected back at them. Advances in Artificial Intelligence mean our personal intelligent agents have begun to acquire personality. Given its prevalence, it is appropriate to identify the scope of this phenomenon that is altering our relationship to the 'non-human' world. This book presents taxonomy of personalisation, and its potential consequences for the design profession as well as its ethical and political dimensions through a collection of essays from a range of academic perspectives. The thought-provoking introduction, conclusion and nine chapters present a well-balanced mixture of in-depth literature review and practical examples to deepen our understanding of the consequences of personalisation for our professional and personal lives. Collectively, this book points towards the implications of personalisation for design-led social innovation. This will be valuable reading for professionals in the design industry and health provision, as well as students of product design, fashion and sociology.

This book focuses on how personalisation - the idea that public services should be tailored to the individual, with budgets devolved to the service user or frontline staff - evolved as a policy narrative and has mobilised wide-ranging political support.

This book critiques the use of algorithms to pre-empt personal choices in its profound effect on markets, democracy and the rule of law.

Social service agencies in the United Kingdom are increasingly under pressure to provide personalized care, even as the larger climate of austerity puts pressure on their resources. Increasingly, this means that community-based organizations of five or fewer staff members--known as microenterprises--are being asked to handle work that was formerly the province of much larger providers. In part, this is rooted in the assumption that small organizations can be more innovative and responsive. This book tests that assumption, analyzing the work of care organizations with a specific focus on size and how it affects personalization and the quality of care.

The government agenda on Personalisation and self-directed support is fast-moving and rapidly changing. It is vital therefore that students and practitioners alike are aware of the key issues and debates, as well as the policy that surrounds this area of practice. This timely and fully revised second edition provides an overview of the personalisation agenda and looks at the recent legislation in a broad historical and theoretical perspective. This approach will provide opportunities for students to consider the changes to the social work role and to evaluate the impact of this for service users and as practitioners.

Is critical argumentation an effective way to overcome disagreement? And does the exchange of arguments bring opponents in a controversy closer to the truth? This study provides a new perspective on these pivotal questions. By means of multi-agent simulations, it investigates the truth and consensus-conduciveness of controversial debates. The book brings together research in formal epistemology and argumentation theory. Aside from its consequences for discursive practice, the work may have important implications for philosophy of science and the way we construe scientific rationality as well.

In the context of the Care Act 2014, this third edition of the leading textbook on personalisation considers key policy changes since 2009 and new research into the extension and outcomes of personal budgets. Direct payments and personal budgets have developed rapidly, transforming the whole of adult social care. In future, all care will be delivered via a personal budget, with direct payments as the default rather than the exception. As the concepts have spread from adult social care to other sectors, the changes have been controversial and difficult to implement. Front-line practitioners and people using services have struggled to make sense of these ways of working in a challenging financial and policy context. This accessible textbook is essential reading for students, practitioners and policy makers in social work and community care services.

Neoliberalism has had a major impact on public policy but it has also perhaps obscured the equally dramatic spread of other policy tools based on significantly different forms of social science. This book therefore explores the mixture of social technologies that have arisen since neoliberalism, sometimes alongside and sometimes in conflict with it, but generally as attempts to address problems created by the market reforms of a high neoliberalism. These have included attempts to spread networks, joining-up, and long term partnerships, and to build state capacity, social capital, and resilient communities. Thematically, each chapter is defined by its engagement with governmentality, specifically challenging governmentality theory to pay more attention to practices. The book also develops a complex and variegated account of neoliberalism and its afterlife as chapters highlight the different ways in which a range of market mechanisms and other technologies now coexist in different policy areas. Finally, the book moves beyond abstract discussions of both governmentality and neoliberalism to concrete demonstrations of this approach in action. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of governance, public policy, governmentality theory and more broadly to British Politics, social policy, and sociology.