Service User Involvement: Impact on Social Work Organizations

This essay delves into the crucial concept of service user involvement within social work organizations, particularly in the United Kingdom. It examines how user engagement influences the planning, delivery, and improvement of social services, highlighting the shift towards incorporating service user perspectives. The discussion covers the effectiveness of service user involvement in shaping organizational policies and structures, including the impact on individual perceptions, organizational changes, and service delivery modifications. Furthermore, the essay analyzes relevant UK legislation that supports user participation, such as the Children’s Act 1989 and the National Health Service Act 2006, emphasizing how these acts empower service users. The essay also addresses the challenges associated with service user involvement, such as difficulties in obtaining feedback and the need for organizations to adapt to facilitate meaningful participation. Overall, the essay underscores the importance of service user involvement as a cornerstone of effective and responsive social work practices, advocating for a user-centered approach to service delivery and organizational development.

Running head: SERVICE USER INVOLVEMENT
SERVICE USER INVOLVEMENT
Name of the Student:
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Introduction:
The aim of this essay is to discuss the service user engagement in the organisations
and how challenges can create problem for shaping of the organisations on the basis of
service user involvement. They have gradually become engaged in in the process of planning
and delivering of the social services in the context of United Kingdom. Both in the
government operated as well as community based social service sectors have increased
awareness about improving their services through service user engagement. This is the reason
why substantial body of literature has focused on examining how effective this participation
of the users improve the shape of the organisations.
In this changing Global context the bureaucratisation of social service has changed its
perception. Previously the service users faced issues as they did not get the scope to get
engaged with the organisations and improve their facilities. In the recent times more and
more focus on the service users experiences are being promoted for organisation in shipping
where the social workers incorporating the service users perspective for their improvement
(Näslund, Sjöström and Markström 2019). The organisations are forming partnerships with
the service users and meeting the requirements of the social work education programs in the
country that is leading the development of the innovative approaches to the organisation and
involving the service users as the experts based on their own experiences that is valuable for
changing the structure and policies of the organisation for the future. this essay will
involvement examine the relevant legislation in the United Kingdom regarding service user
participation and detail the effectiveness of service user involvement for the changes of
policies and structures of the organisations all of these understandings will be covered by the
challenges of service user involvement in shaping organisations focusing on social work
programs.

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Discussion:
Service user involvement:
The service users are the people who use and have use the services mainly related to
the mental health services for the disability related services from any centres of social
service. In the department of health of the United Kingdom refers the service user as anyone
who has already experienced the mental distress and cannot access the mental health service
can be termed as a service user (Lewis-Morton et al. 2015). Along with this the department of
health has added the service users as the people who have previous experience of suffering
and services but contemplate themselves mended. Moreover the people who identify
problems experienced by their psychological distress are the service users. The terms like
consumers and clients are associated with the service users in in other countries (Turner et al.
2015). This is quite similar to the relationship between the business and the consumers. As
the customers can play a vital role for the development of the business through giving
feedback on the products or services, similarly these services can help in improving the
quality of service as they know all the pros and cons of the services already experienced.
Now the involvement is a term that is used for describing the persons associated with
the service are becoming active in his own care as well as the care of the others in the similar
situations. Some of the authors show preference for the word participation instead because
this implies the idea of being voluntarily and actively involved with the social care services
(Bissell, 2012). The service users gets engaged or connected with the service providers and
leads to more passive process of user involvement for more attractive roleplaying of user
contribution (Bronzini 2017). The management Centred user involvement has close
connection with the user centred involvements where the service users help the organisations

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to define their own priorities and objectives. Thus the service users become engaged with the
service industry or asked to become involved so that the improvement of the organisational
process can be achieved (Abayneh et al. 2017). They become a part of the mechanism aiming
to help the service providers to do their jobs more effectively within the recent power
structures. In addition to this service user involvement can truly empower the service user’s
service providers and the users. In other cases the focus of the user engagement has been
basically about connecting users who use the human social services for planning and decision
making related with the care of themselves as well as of the others.
Effectiveness of Service user involvement:
There are several theoretical and practical results that measure the impacts of service
user involvement for the growth of the organisation by allowing the service users in the
improvement of the service quality for the methods or techniques applied by the organisation
based on their true experience. The right based approaches of Social Service Delivery has
emphasized on the human as well as civil rights of the service users rather than retailing the
needs of the customers. This method has created scopes for forming new collective services
to the clients that include new measures to provide direct expenditures, advocacy and Service
Delivery (Simpson et al. 2016). The impact of service user involvement it is effective for
serving the interest of the users as well as the organisational improvement and shipping.
Individual perception change
The service user involvement in the context of social service has increased self-
esteem, confidence and knowledge attainment for the young people going through some
psychological health problems and the disabled community along with other affected groups.
In most of the cases the group members do not claim that they need the access for getting
involved in the operation of the organisation not there point out that there expertise and

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experience have enhanced improvement of the services and left the organisation for lasting
systems change but these people view the involvement procedure as the enriching the
experience for everyone who are involved with the operations of the organisation.
Organisational change
The service user involvement has the largest organisational influence in creating
knowledge and experience of the institutions. Service user involvement has changed how the
research on the mental health or any type of aging issues can be perceived air implemented.
This is the reason why the research projects on the mental health issues and disability factors
are increasingly conducted in the process of partnering with the services. The service users
have particular and essential role in the production of knowledge of the industries mainly
associated with health as well as social care. This is due to the fact that the experiential nature
of the knowledge who are already experienced in getting care to overcome their in abilities
and through their positions as the experts of on experiences (Cusack et al. 2016) The
experiences shared by these users have effectively contributed to the internal knowledge
development in the organisations and referred as lessons for case studies in the staff training
programs. this therefore share the knowledge of the experienced patients for users with the
professionals in such a way that can affect organisational culture and provide perfect
feedback on the methods of services provided.
Change in the service delivery
England's the National Institute for mental health has introduced various approaches
for increasing service user involvement because it is understood that the service users who
are involved in the service stage decisions can contribute most effective at regional level in
the country. This is due to the fact that they have influences with the local networks and

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different service programs. In that context the service users are being paid for being involved
which cover their expenses of healthcare.
In shaping the organisations mainly operating in the Healthcare system of the United
Kingdom involvement of the service user has become essential because efficiency of the
offered services have increased greatly and changes in the service delivery has been
perceived in different aspects which includes new and expand services, policy changes
personal issues and creation of mechanism for the service user involvement (Goossen and
Austin 2017). The impact of service user involvement directly connects the legislation of the
country and help in organisational changes by shaping the already existing policies and
strategies in a positive manner.
Relevant legislation in the UK:
In different countries the service user engagement regulations a different. Despite the fact that
in every cases the service users contribute directly for the improvement of the quality of
services for transforming the weaknesses of the service centres into two strengths by
changing their organisational policies or approach. The service user involvement is a type of
client self-determination as well as strength based practice which are the key principles of
developing Social Work practices. This can be attributed to a number of factors. One of the
most important factors is the relevant legislation in the country where the organisation is
operating and how much the organisational policy is avoiding by the legislation (Bissell,
2012). In some cases organisations face problems due to the rules of the countries regarding
social service and they cannot act freely for taking care for apply unique practices needed for
the improvement of service quality. the legislation is important because this enhances
participation of the service users to give feedback on their experiences of services
organisations and when these participants get full support of the legislation they can voice in

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support or against of a particular service or for that matter a particular organisation where
they have availed their services.
In the case of working in United Kingdom there are some explicit requirements for
the user involvement. There are acts like children’s act 1989 and NHS and community care
act of 1990 (Cavamh.org.uk 1990). these acts have detailed requirements that support the
method of involving service users for assessment, complain procedures management of
service and planning of service providing there are significant legislation in in United
Kingdom that focuses on the involvement of the service users for having the provision to
make direct payment to the disabled users which is written in the Health And Social Care Act
Of 2001 (Legislation.gov.uk (2001).
The user organisations which are controlled by the current and past services have
been expected to be more responsive for the needs of the client as mentioned in the National
Health Service act of 2006 (Legislation.gov.uk 2006). This act has empowered the patients
and social services users. This legislation has directly e connect the organisations to make
arrangements for health services responsibly to the service users who are associated directly
or through representations. This act empowers the service users to get proper access on the
planning of provisions of the services, development and considerations of the proposals for
bringing any changes of the service methods and decisions relating to the operations of the
organisations (Bissell, 2012). This range of involvement includes sharing info, active
participation in the planning process and direct connection with the provision of service in the
British legislation regarding user involvement has clearly reflected the procedure of
respecting the perspective as well as engagement of the service users for the improvement for
bringing changes in the organisation.

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Challenges of Service user involvement in shaping organizations:
As the service user involvement is an intervention based decision making process,
there are many challenges which create barrier for a successful involvement between the uses
and the organisation when it seeks meaning full participation in the United Kingdom.
Firstly, the organisations focusing in the caring the mental health service users or the
users with disabilities and other issues face the most important problem for convincing these
users to give their feedback or be involved in the improvement process of the organisation.
The organisations faced problems when the users exit interviews are questionnaires. They do
not even want to register their interest and give their views for the betterment of the policies
or types of services (Grundy et al. 2016). For the user involvement the organisations try to
build an extended team and setup systems so that they gain response from the service users
when they have gone beyond their crisis stage. But these service users do not have much
awareness or interest about giving feedback or support to the recovery workers so that the
service providers get a clear view of their decisions or actions.
Secondly, the service users and the organisations mainly have different priorities. The
organisations try to serve the customers on the basis of their general needs to create policies.
These organisations mainly want to recover their service user participation process by
collecting data from larger and a more diverse cross section of services so that they can meet
the needs of more persons understanding their views and perception regarding the service
through one particular policy. Whereas in the sharp difference the service users are more
focused with increasing the user involvement in a smaller number by engaging a particular
practice for policy reforms (Astuti Napitupulu, Van Riel and Sasovova 2017). They want to
focus on the individual interests so that the stakeholders facing the same issues like them get
the best out of that policy.

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Thirdly, the area of service user engagement is only limited to some near consultation
with the professionals give the idea what they lack but in most of the cases this professionals
control this involvement process dominating the views of the service users as they are in the
receiving end. There the outcomes of such engagement it does not create a true partnership in
which the status, power and decision making are completely shared. In many cases the views
of the service users are not noted properly because they have the background of facing
vulnerabilities in their crisis stages (Samudre et al. 2016). Moreover they have the
background of psychological disorder which make them negligible for dependability where
the organisations do not change their policies depending upon the experience an
understanding of a sick person. This is the reason why the service users continue to
understand that their perception do not affect the companies concern hence understand their
participation to be as token something and productive and superficial for the growth of the
organisation or improvement of service (Bissell, 2012). This leads the organisations to
exercise more power over their stakeholders ultimately leading this partnership unfruitful and
serving of their own interests.
Fourthly, the involvement process of the service user with the service organisations
face most difficulty to deal with the marginalised services. Mini service users feel that the
service providing areas of many organisations in the United Kingdom has been limited by the
perception of serving the low income group. This type of service users do not have much
time not the resources for participating in search programs (Bee et al. 2015). In such cases the
service users from lower income group face discrimination in services or biasness while the
practitioners are listening to their experiences regarding the services. Similarly the
communities from different minor ethnic groups have seen high level of discrimination in the
mainstream service organisations where they have faced stigma regarding their own ethnic
communities. Thus the service user involvement leaves them to feel isolation from both the

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communities and give them a sense of powerlessness to make a real change. despite the fact
that in the UK number of ethnic minority people facing the mental health problem or any type
of disabilities along with aging problems have increased in last three decades and they have
started to avail the services and get involved with the service user engagement programs.
Although some of the minority service users have felt frustrated with no change in their
problematic lives which such involve better in the future (Semrau et al. 2016).
Fifthly the awareness that reduce the opportunity of increasing engagement of the
service users with the service organisations for the betterment of services does not have
proper marketing system. For example despite the United Kingdom has a well-structured
system of involving the user to collaborate with the organisations, there is no advertisements
to recruit more diverse range of people for finding new volunteers (Scammell, Heaslip and
Crowley 2016). This is the reason why the organisations lack an efficient and empathizing
workforce who can promote this type of program for improving the collaborative measures
by the organisations. On the other hand some formal recruitment process creates barrier for
user involvement because the people who are recruited on the basis of their skills to provide
care may not have the potential to initiate ok remote this type of programs or involvement
with the already experienced service users.
Sixthly from the points of view of the organisations the service user involvement is
difficult to develop because there are general agreements which are mostly unreasonable to
get people along to a meeting for reviewing or commenting on the document without any
training (Wright et al. 2016). The people who are already experienced with the service have
many things to share or point out the weaknesses of those services but without any proper
understanding of the structure for why that service is done in that way, they cannot provided
perfect feedback.

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Finally, many people have good relationship with the investigators are the researchers
who to help them to enhance the capabilities of service user involvement. However in many
cases the involvement is done badly which enhance frustration irritation and redness among
the service users (Millar, Chambers and Giles 2016). Hence the people put off their
involvement. Therefore having proper support of affective involvement coordinator maybe a
real help but in many cases this may not be done properly
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded that the laws and government of the UK has announce
their commitments for the service user involvement for a long period of time. This is the
reason why, many literature has been formed to investigate the efficiency and scope for
increasing this involvement. However, there are some barriers that cater problems of
measuring of the impact of the service user involvement. All of the impact of this type of
involvement leads to organizations to develop strong client base but they need to develop a
robust evaluation mechanisms for tracking service user involvement and its long-term impact.

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Abayneh, S., Lempp, H., Alem, A., Alemayehu, D., Eshetu, T., Lund, C., Semrau, M.,
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strengthening in a rural African setting: qualitative study. BMC psychiatry, 17(1), p.187.
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