Meeting-The-Challenge-Making-a-Difference-Practitioner-Guide

PRACTICAL GUIDANCE
There are many different
ways of doing this, but
common examples include
encouraging service users to
be actively involved in their
own care, or to have a say or
an active role in the design,
delivery and evaluation of
mental health services. The
principle which underpins this
is that people with lived
experience of mental health
issues/using services have a
valuable perspective; making
a contribution in this way is
beneficial both to that person
and their development, and
beneficial to the development
of services.
Co-production is a term that is
becoming increasingly popular.
It refers to a broad range of
involvement activities where
staff and service users enter
into a collaborative
relationship, working together
and recognising one another’s
different skills and experience
as equally valuable. This
approach draws on the
understanding that both staff
and service users need to be
empowered to be able to work
in partnership together.
What are the types of service user
involvement?
In practice, service user involvement in mental health services in
community settings can be applied across five main areas:
Service users involved in their own care: for example, someone’s own
view of their difficulties being taken into account in assessment, the
service user having a say in their treatment and care plans, being
listened to in care planning meetings. You might think about this
as a shift from doing things to people, to doing them with people.
In service planning and evaluation: for example, giving feedback
on the service; taking part in focus groups; service users working
as researchers to evaluate the service, membership in clinical
governance and service development structures.
Recruitment and training of staff: service users sitting on staff
interview panels with an equal say to other members; facilitating
training; running staff inductions.
In service delivery: This might be through direct service delivery
such as service users facilitating groups, working alongside
staff to co-facilitate assessments, providing service inductions.
Another approach is to involve service users in reflective forums
for staff such as case management meetings, case formulations,
complex case forums, group supervision.
Approaches to involvement
As with any large, diverse group of people, there are widely varying
views, experiences and ways of understanding personality disorder
among service users. There is no single service user perspective.
To overcome this sometimes people might ask for a service user
‘representative’, whose role is to represent others. If you choose a
representative model it important to think about who the individual
needs to represent (i.e. identify their constituency) and how they
will gather the views and ideas of those they represent (e.g. through
a service user group meeting or via a service user network).
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