4.1. Organisation and Relationships

Organisation and building cohesive relationships were consistently identified as key aspects of effective service user and carer involvement. Many participants, particularly service users and carers highlighted how vital connection was to them and the impact of this.

Structure

“I need to plan carefully so I do like to know well ahead of time when I am needed.” (Service User C)

“Greater discussion between staff and service users as to how service users could be involved.” (Service User F)

“Meetings need to be held at accessible times, for example to accommodate school pick-ups.” (Professional Y)

Structure was recognised as an essential aspect by service user and carer participants’ in their role to allow them to plan their time, ensuring they can be involved in user activities at the university or council whilst also fulfilling their caring and other responsibilities. The responses across participants highlighted that there was a greater need for clarity for service user and carer involvement across social work education. Although attempts had been made to address this, it was clear from service user and carer participant responses that this was yet to be embedded. It was evident that formal organisation of service user involvement could not only support service user and carer participants on a personal and user-activity level, but also could help reinforce that contributions were not tokenistic. Moving beyond consideration of service user and carers’ abilities to provide cover for user-led activities and instead, towards being a fundamental part of the overall process as participants highlighted:

“Clarity on when and where SU’s are currently being involved in programs.” (Service User F)

“Make their position central.” (Tutor Participant 5) Consequently, organisational structure may need to change and adapt to accommodate new ways of working with people who have often been oppressed or marginalised. Frustrations with rigid processes were compounded by fixed systems and structures which exist in the organisations, that need to be flexible enough to adapt to service user and carer’s needs, as seen in tutor participants’ responses:

“Also accommodating for fluctuations in service users mental and physical health and checking on them when they are less well.” (Tutor Participant 2)

“This may involve a culture change.” (Tutor Participant 6)

A need was identified for supportive, flexible, clear and consistent infra-structures, alongside professional and personal attention to meet service user and carer’s basic requirements. For example, ensuring that individuals were paid on time, a fair allocation of scheduled activities or feedback on tasks.

“Adopting a “working in partnership” approach to allow Service Users to feedback what worked well and what didn’t.” (Student response)

“I would like some feedback.” (Service User F)

Structures of feedback allow all those associated in service user involvement to evaluate and think critically and reflectively about the processes that have taken place. This allows for the identification of areas of strength along with aspects that could be improved. It may help to build a service user’s confidence and self-esteem as well as allowing them to tailor their input more effectively to the student’s needs with the support of the Citizen Involvement Coordinator. Only half of the service user and carer participants had received feedback about their involvement and few of the tutor participants had kept student feedback from service user involvement in their sessions. This