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Service User Involvement

A huge democratic deficit exists in how services are planned and commissioned – accountability tends to flow upwards to the NTA and Central Government rather than towards the people who have most to gain and to lose from the delivery of efficient local drugs and alcohol services.
This deficit is well known and across health and social care a number of initiatives have been developed to look
To set up useful engagement process that share power in the decision making processes is a huge challenge. Yet it is one that must be addressed if services are to be designed that are responsive to the needs of all stake holders.
In involves staff being aware of how they use power and being prepared to share it with some of the people most affected by the ongoing drugs and alcohol pandemic.

Service user involvement is about these specific issues power and accountability. Key questions are about for whose benefit services are being run and the extent to which professionals involved in the sector are prepared to be answerable to the communities they are supposed to support.Considerable anxiety (but often unacknowledged) exists still in many quarters about how this can be done and what issues may arise. This course will consider models of good practice from across the health and social care system to enable participants to identify approaches that may work in their locality and organisations. It will also help services and organizations meet QUADS standard 16: involving and empowering services user.

On completion of the course people will be able to
▪ Define what benefits an organisation hopes to gain from a service user involvement process
▪ Identify an appropriate model of service user involvement to use
▪ Tackle institutional blocks to service user involvement
▪ Select appropriate tools and methods to use
▪ Ensure sufficient support for service users involved in the process
▪ Structure a service user involvement strategy for their organisation or area

This course is designed and delivered in association with DrugScope

DrugScope is the UK's leading independent centre of expertise on drugs and the national membership organisation for the drug field. Our aim is to inform policy development and reduce drug-related harms - to individuals, families and communities. We provide quality drug information, promote effective responses to drug taking, undertake research, advise on policy-making, encourage informed debate - particularly in the media - and speak for our member organisations working on the ground.

Please note
All our courses are commissioned for groups and organisations. If you have more than three people who would benefit from working together on this topic, use the link at the the bottom of the page to contact me, or click here to find out more about getting us to deliver a programme.

We regret that we do not have an open access programme