Changing social care: an inclusive approach
People who use services driving culture change - Offer training
- Be aware that information, support and training will be valuable for all those involved in change. This could be arranged by contacting a local user-led organisation, putting the people who use your service in touch with each other, or commissioning training on a specific topic.
- Providing training is particularly important in enabling users to participate more effectively and take on more responsible roles such as becoming board members. This might include training on assertiveness, negotiation, meeting and committee procedures, and legal rights.
One group of young people were trained to interview staff and present their views to a selection panel. Others developed training and induction materials for new recruits
(SCIE Knowledge review 17)
Practical examples of training to support effective participation can be found in SCIE Guide 4: Involving service users and carers in social work education and the practice examples section of SCIE Guide 17: The participation of adult service users, including older people, in developing social care.
How we know this
- Training for service users is a practical element of good practice. Staff training is also necessary, particularly in such things as disability equality. Further discussion on this subject can be found in SCIE Report 5: Users at the heart - User participation in the governance and operations of social care regulatory bodies.
- Most good practice guides emphasise that cultural change should be the outcome of participation. Robson et al. (2003) distinguish between ‘management-centred user involvement’, where service users take part in existing structures and organisations determine the content of the meetings, and ‘user-centred user involvement’, where service users’ objectives and priorities became the organisation’s objectives and priorities. The findings suggest that users only really value ‘user-centred user involvement’.
