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Service User Involvement
These pages provide information and resources for organisations working with homeless people on the key issue of involving the users of their services.
What's New?
- Community Care magazine has an article on User participation in developing services
- ThamesReach's GROW project, which facilitated a workshop on employing service users at Homeless Link's 2007 conference, has launched a discussion forum on its webpage.
About Service User Involvement
Creating Change, Homeless Link's strategy for creating change in front line services to homeless people, has a section on Placing service users at the heart of service development and delivery.
Service user involvement is about involving homeless and formerly homeless people in the planning, delivery and evaluation of services and campaigning work. Making use of the insights, knowledge and skills of people who have experienced homelessness has benfits for services and their clients. At the same time, giving service users the opportunity to contribute can make a real difference to how they see themselves and what they are capable of.
Organisations looking to involve service users should of course consult the service users themselves as well as user-led organisations like Groundswell. Locally-based organisations include Brent Homeless Users Group (B.HUG), finalists for the Michael Whippman Prize, and Bradford Speakout, which has produced a Charter of Rights for homeless people.
Peer Education and prevention projects
Many projects draw on the experiences of homeless and formerly homeless people to educate others - particularly young people - about homelessness issues. B.HUG run Homelessness Roadshows to raise awareness of homelessness issues in schools. Shaidy Characters, also Michael Whippman finalists, have produced DVDs and training for schools and frontline staff to use to raise awareness of youth homelessness. Centrepoint's peer education project in Worcestershire is a prevention initiative that draws of homeless and formerly homeless young people.
Further Resources
- Connect articles online Road to recovery, is about how a relapse prevention service in Bristol involves potentially hard-to-reach client. Jumping hurdles gives tips on overcoming barriers to involving service users.
- ThamesReach has a project called GROW (Giving Real Opportunities for Work), which aims to have 10 per cent of the organisation's workforce made up of former rough sleepers by the end of 2007.
- The Social Care Institute for Excellence has produced Doing it for themselves: participation and black and minority ethnic service users.
- The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a report, Hidden Work by the New Economics Foundation on Co-production by people outside paid employment, "where clients work alongside professionals as partners in the delivery of services". Read the Findings
- Our pages on Service User Involvement in the North West describe the work going on in that region and contain good practice examples that are more widely applicable.
- The Support Action Net website, developed by Lemos and Crane, aims to help organisations transform policy and practice by placing the service user's aspirations, wishes and dreams at the centre of the way they and their staff plan and deliver support services.
- Enterprising Solutions is a network of user involvement consultants and researchers.