Listen Up - Social Welfare Portal

listenup!70 | Chapter 9It is a positive and empoweringexperience and provides theopportunity to voice our opinions.Young personexternal professionals on the benefits to them ofconsulting with young people and assured them ofthe young people’s ability to engage effectively.“We try to encourage other professionals to includeservice users, but only when we feel a young personwants to be involved and that is appropriate…we’ve had conversations with the young personand considered what it would mean for them to beinvolved with that particular activity.”Project worker, The Caterpillar Service,The Marlborough Road Partnership, CardiffPersonal developmentFeeling empowered, independent and in controlYoung people said that being provided withthe choice and flexibility to make decisionsabout the support they received, as well as thesecurity of knowing they could change theirkeyworker if necessary, gave them a strong senseof empowerment and control over their lives.Consequentially, they became more confident inmaking decisions on other aspects of their lives.Having the opportunity to ‘shape’ internal serviceprovision and delivery as well as being involved inexternal events and consultations enabled youngpeople to strike a healthy balance between receivingsupport and enhancing their confidence to beresponsible and independent adults.Acquiring specialised knowledge and languageYoung people felt that, through their involvementwith the organisation on a strategic level, they hadacquired a clear understanding of the directionand purpose of the organisation they attended.Involvement in external events and consultationsalso provided them with a better understandingof policy and practice in other sectors of themental health system. They felt that this specialisedknowledge had enhanced their ability to navigateindependently through and access a selection ofservices to meet their needs. In addition, they feltthey had gained a better insight into their rights andentitlements as a young person and could pass thisknowledge on to other young people who werefacing similar experiences. Finally, they felt more ableto contribute significantly to the ongoing mentalhealth agenda.The opportunity to network with professionalsfrom other services, and in some cases with policymakers and commissioners, helped the youngpeople develop their communication skills. Thiswas, in fact, a two-way process; young peopleeducated professionals on how to use languagethat young people could understand, whilesimultaneously learning to adapt to different stylesof language and terminology used by professionals.This presented a number of challenges for youngpeople, because the language used by professionalsdiffers between sectors, and in some cases thesame terminology can have different meanings. Byadapting and pitching their language to differentprofessionals, young people felt they were ableto engage with and influence a wider range ofprofessionals more successfully, for example duringnetworking, presenting at conferences or engagingin consultations.Gaining transferable skillsYoung people said that their engagement in theactivities involved in service user participation– public speaking, networking, consultation activities,organising and engaging in fun events, recruitmentand training of professionals, health promotion,marketing their organisation – had helped themdevelop a wide range of transferable skills. Theseincluded organisation and time management skills,communication and language skills, life skills andcoping strategies, and relationship developmentskills. Overall, participation helped young peopleto develop the necessary skills to make progress inother aspects of their lives.