Our Core Principle: Service User Leadership

Our core principle at together is service user leadership. We believe service user leadership does not only benefit those people who are accessing support; the benefits can have a positive impact on all aspects of Together, and wider society.

A key element of service user leadership is the power of lived experience. We want to be able to learn from people who have a range of views and who have experienced mental distress in different ways and whose lives have been affected in different ways to inform and influence Together from a lived experience perspective.

Because these terms are at the heart of our work at Together we worked with our service users and teams to clearly define them and developed the following definitions:

Our definition of service user leadership is as follows:

“Service user leadership empowers people to make choices that affect their lives, lead their journey to wellbeing on their own terms and to collectively influence and improve services, organisations and society.”

Our definition of lived experience is:

“A person who has experienced mental distress, and who can draw on their unique knowledge and personal insights to connect with others, influencing and informing from a lived experience perspective.”