DRINK & DRUGS NEWS :: Q&A

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Thanks to this issue's respondents for their contributions.

Question:

I work at a DAT and have responsibility for improving service user involvement. It's one thing to say it, but another thing to do it - I've found not all service users want to be engaged. Can anyone give me inspiration?

Your replies...

Hi Jim

I'm an ex-service user, who got involved with a service user group six months ago. I agree with your experience that not all service users want to be involved. Nevertheless, three of us carried on regardless, attracting the odd one or two here and losing the odd one or two there. So long as we had a core few who were willing, we found things began to happen.

We found that establishing what the user group stands for and its aims can be a rallying point for support. If we are willing to stand up and be counted we needed to know what we stood for. Social activities were a good way of attracting people and seeing if they wanted to be involved. A drop-in service was another way of looking for service users who wanted to be involved.

We are currently drafting a questionnaire to try to find out what we are doing right, what we are doing wrong, and what else we might be doing, but aren't.

All of this has taken time to happen, six months so far. I spoke to one fellow from another SUG who were applying for a £20,000 grant. Wow I thought, then he told me that it had taken them five years to get to that stage.

As well as social activities, drop-ins, a peer-supporter/befriending program, we have also used noticeboards and newsletters to attract interest. But we are finding out that sometimes the treatment centre can be a victim of its own success - people have become successfully employed or re-enter higher education and do not have the time.

There is also the sensitivity we have to have towards clients who are currently going through treatment, that they are not pushed into taking on to much at this delicate time for them. And finally we are learning the hard way that there are just some people who do not want to get involved, no matter what.

With that in mind, we are trying to empower the ones who wish to, and are willing to, belong. We are not counting our success at our meetings as the number of bums on seats, but rather encouraging and enriching the lives of the ones who do turn up.

We are currently thinking of developing the idea of having a families group.

You might like this:

DO YOU JUST BELONG

• Are you an active member, the kind that would be missed.
• Or are you just contented that your name is on the list?
• Do you attend the meetings and mingle with the flock,
• Or do you meet in private and criticise and knock?
• Do you take an active part to help the work along,
• Or are you satisfied to be the kind that just belongs?
• Do you work on committees, to this there is no trick,
• Or leave the work to just a few and talk about the clique?
• Don't be just a member, but take an active part.
• Think this over members, you know what's right from wrong,
• Are you an active member, or do you just belong?

I hope this helps Jim, Good luck and God bless

David Jones, Manchester

Dear Jim

Listen to what the service users in your area want, there is not a one size fits all solution to this. Not all service users want to be writing magazines holding meetings and forming service user groups, you can't impose your vision of how involvement should work on the service users in your area.

Try different methods of discussing involvement within your area. Don't get despondent if you arrange a meeting and no one shows, it will not happen overnight and it is down to you to keep trying. You need to stress the benefits they will get from involvement, and how they really will be listened to and will have an opportunity to influence the way their service operates. When you do get a dialogue, listen to all of the ideas discussed and only agree to things that you will be able to deliver. The quickest way to loose the confidence of the service users in your area is to make promises you can't keep. Above all keep working at it, the end results will benefit everyone involved.

Collette, London

Dear Jim

I myself am an ex service user with the DAAT. The main reason I started to get involved was because I had had some bad experiences within the treatment sector and the advocacy worker was very supportive towards me; she really made me feel like my opinion was valuable. She had provided lots of training, so it wasn't just all one way. I have attended lots of meetings with service providers and other service users. This experience and extra knowledge I have gained through the DAAT has been invaluable.

I am now starting work very soon as a drug worker within a tier two service. I am extremely grateful to my advocacy worker at the DAAT because she has supported me 100 per cent, which has helped me a great deal, because I found that being an ex service user with a criminal record made it very difficult for me to try and find employment in this field.

Annie, West Midlands

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