These Survival Guides are designed to help people steer through the complex and distressing process of obtaining appropriate support, or a service, while seeking to recover from any number of problems. | Important Definition: Service Users:
Although not a universally acknowledged as an acceptable term, this is the term that was coined to identify those of us who 'receive' services from professional groups and agencies. It is not ideal but was an attempt to resist 'objectifying' people who receive some kind of health, or social care input into their lives. The Irony is that the term also works against 'user inclusion' in some ways. This is in the sense that we are also the potential, or actual provider of the services in various ways. We collectively 'own' these services and have a legal and moral right to influence the development of them. We can also help run them and determine how they are provided. In some instances, we are also the direct providers of a service. At present 'Service User' is the best term we have available, which does not connote being 'done to'. Whether we like it or not, it was the term coined, almost unanimously, by delegate to a number of Conferences, for people with learning difficulties, some 30 years ago. This was soon after the concept & practice of 'Community Care' was beginning to evolve. An initiative that began with the Campaign to improve services to people with learning difficulties. There are problems with all these terms; like patient, client, customer, people, citizen, etc. The concept of 'Social Inclusion' assumes (rightly) that there has been some 'exclusion' of important groups, and that society is magnanimously 'giving back' status, in our relationship with professionals & institutions. Actually it is 'Service Uses', and those professionals who appreciate themselves as 'service users', who have demanded this status of 'citizen user' of our collectively owned, public services. We seek to continue this wobbly trend and are confident the process will continue until professional managers fully understand the principles involved. The term 'Service User' helps us re-frame this relationship, but it is the underlying attitude & ethic that determines the true character of an 'empowered' partnership. Whatever the term used, it needs to connote a potentially active & informed participation, at all stages & levels. This should be from assessment stage, through the provisioning, to review & completion. The term, & the philosophy behind it, does not ( should not), give the impression of mere representation, or token inclusion on paperwork, or in a meeting. Informed service users and their representative, will eventually determine Policy and the acceptable Practices for the services provided to meet their needs. This philosophy will eventually be sustained for all service users, of any public service. It will be enlightened professionals that will ensure the necessary self-advocacy for this to happen. TRC. eMail: terry.couchman@visitweb.org |
