Together is committed to ensuring that people who experience mental distress are respected and represented at the planning stage of mental health service provision and have the same rights as any other member of the community.

Our Service-user Involvement Directorate has a two-fold role:

• developing service-user involvement and leadership within Together; and
• supporting service-user involvement outside of Together, facilitating links between individuals and groups to influence at a strategic level, such as national policy. Our national directory of groups provides contact details for service-user organisations across the country.

Our way of working

We have developed the Wellbeing Approach to Involvement to achieve our aim of involvement that:

• adds to individual wellbeing
• supports local groups and communities
• is service user led
• provides a collective perspective.

The Directorate does things like publishing guides, running workshops and establishing links with universities and other organisations to raise awareness of issues in the wider community. All with the aim of sharing good practice in service-user involvement. 

At Together no one is ever considered too distressed to participate or give their opinion. We want to involve and gain a collective perspective from as wide a range of service-users as possible. A document on collective perspectives is available to download from the foot of the Well-being Approach to Involvement page.

In addition to developing service-user involvement within Together, we take on tenders and contracts for specific pieces of work around service-user involvement, such as financial literacy programmes and skills training.

The Directorate, with support from Together’s National Service-user Steering Group, wants to influence the policy and planning of statutory and voluntary-sector service provision. We have shared our ideas at conferences and meetings both across the country and internationally in order to gain a firm understanding to map a way forward.

While we celebrate innovation and take a holistic approach that values wellbeing, we do not undertake work in isolation from established mental health planning processes.

Who are we?

At the Directorate’s head is Together’s Director of Service-User Involvement, Anne Beales, who has used mental health services herself. Anne is supported by a Deputy Director, two Involvement Managers and a team of people working in individual service-user involvement schemes across the country. These groups support other local service-user groups in a variety of ways and offer advice to those which want to link to us.

All Service User Involvement staff and volunteers access or have accessed mental health services and/or experienced mental health problems.

• design sets of principles and safe good practice tools, and implement these
• raise awareness and promote a shared vision and positive image of how people can maintain their mental health
• train people to speak up, negotiate and work effectively in consultation with other individuals, organisations and professionals
• empower people to manage their own distress and journey towards a state of enhanced well-being, working in partnership with others.

A national role

We have been appointed as the service-user voice on the National Mental Health Partnership Board. This group, which includes representatives of 60 mental health trusts, meets quarterly to identify and resolve problems. We have a responsibility to represent and include views from the diverse community of those who access mental health services at these gatherings.  

In March 2006, service-users from all over the country voted on the way forward for national representation at the Our Future conference in Birmingham. You can read the findings and recommendations from this important event here, as well as notes from the April and May meetings of the national Network Planning Group (attended by representatives of Together, the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Matters and Rethink).

What is the Steering Group?

Our National Service-user Steering Group works to influence the direction of the Directorate’s activities and Together as a whole.

Made up of people from Together services across the country, it gives people who use our services a chance to discuss issues that matter to them and develop processes and strategies whereby they can build on their skills and extend the influence they wield with service providers.

Three Regional Steering Groups have also been set up to enable people to take part locally, which meet every three months. The views from these groups are carried forward to the National Steering Group.

By using techniques such as group exercises everyone is encouraged to participate in the Group's meetings and to help develop ideas for furthering the cause of service-user involvement. The group promotes the development of leadership skills and also continually assesses ways in which the presence of less vocal service-users can be valued and recognised.

Steering Group sessions also offer people an important chance to meet and compare notes on how well or otherwise they feel they have been treated by service providers. Many of those attending overcome geographical distances and/or a lack of confidence to come along. And for the group, the meetings provide an opportunity to share coping strategies.

Recent issues under debate have included the formation of a Charter of Service-user Involvement and the development of codes of practice for how mental health professionals should treat service-users. Groups have also discussed the value of service-user involvement in the training of social workers.

Get in touch

For more information about any aspect of our work, please contact our Service-user Involvement Directorate on 0207 780 7372, email serviceuser-involvement@together-uk.org or write to 12 Old Street, London, EC1V 9BE. You can download a leaflet about the Directorate at the foot of this page.