Survivors:
The concept of 'Survivor' evolved as people sought to establish 'Self Help' Groups. These were partly established to meet the shortfall of professional services, but also for people to empower themselves, in what were often quite 'disempowering' services.

The movement towards 'self empowered' groups started in the mid-to-late 1960's and accelerated through the 70's to the mid 80's. This development arose out of Radical Movements within the Legal and Social Work Professions in USA and Health Care, Social Work & the Media Professions in both the USA and the UK.

There have always been 'outspoken' people whose experiences have required them to get help from others. In modern western cultures, the services are usually provided through formal institutions, governed and managed by the various, established professions. This has great advantages, but is always prone to Bureaucracy.

It is in the nature of Institutions of any kind, to arise from some original ideal, to seek to maintain standards and moderate any deviations from the stated objectives & principle. This intention is very positive, but can be corrupted so that the institution stagnates. This is recognised as the process of 'Institutionalisation', affecting both Staff & Service Users.

The History of 'Self Empowerment':
The 'Survivor', 'Self Help' and 'Service User' groups were established to advance 'Best Practice', as more effective practices & methods were developed. These new practices sought to ‘fully include' the Service Users, who had been crying out for this for years.

These new services were genuine 'Equal Partnerships' and formed the basis for the original development of Community Care. They were 'Models' of good practice, which sprung up in different parts of the country and thrived until the mid-80's.

Meanwhile, a number of Professional Organisations sought to 'replicate' the radical initiatives, that had proven the value of these partnerships of Service Users and Radical Professionals. These 'Copies' usually failed, because the 'Inclusion' was merely 'Token'.

By the end of the 1980's these projects began to change out of all recognition, with the transition to 'Care in the Community'. The Thatcher philosophy of; 'There is no such thing as Community', took up the counterchallenge of the old Institutions.

The Return to Institutionalisation:
The established Service & Fund Providing Institutions, along with the Health and Social Care 'Professional Organisations' (largely in the form of organisations like SANE and BASW), sought to pull back the power towards the Institutions, pointing at the failure of their own Institutions to successfully implement 'Community Care'.

The problem was; the more entrenched Professionals of the time did not have a commitment to these new ways of working. Those who had a genuine commitment were required to compromise these critical 'Partnership Arrangement' so that they became quite impotent and superficial 'Reference Groups' (they were 'consulted').

Community Care did not fail. It was the institution’s sad attempt to introduce changes ‘on their limited terms’, which failed. The few Authorities that did a good job of Community Care and Service User Partnerships, carried on best they could, but compromised.

Most positive initiative progressively failed under a barrage of government initiatives, designed to correct those Institutions that were persistently failing to engage the 'Best Practice' models, because of lack of insight and the ineffective use of the funds.

From this point on, all funds provided to the proper 'Community Initiatives' were vetted by the Funding Institutions and the services provided by them were 'Purchased' on very strict and disabling criteria, set by those regressive Institution's philosophies.

The status quo was regained, the positive initiatives of Self Help and Community Care were undermined and the power and control of services returned to the professional managers, who were able to continue their old practices, using the new terms.