Experts by Experience in a Planning Process of Social Policies at local level: A Practical Experience of Participation

This paper intends to present a practical experience of participation made by experts by experience in a planning process of social policies at local level, specifically in the issue of poverty, conducted in a district of Northern Italy. This practice was documented with an action research, which aimed to explore how to support the participation of experts by experience in a social policy planning established to plan interventions against poverty. The author of this paper was the social worker who facilitated this participatory process. A brief description of the process of implementing participation and how the social worker facilitated the direct interactions between the professional knowledge of managers and policy makers and the experiential knowledge of service users is followed by a methodological reflection focusing on the Relational Social Work (RSW) principles applied to this experience.