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Client participation
This page is designed to help street outreach services involve clients, and is based on the belief that participation is at the heart of good practice. By working together more effectively, people experiencing homelessness and staff can ensure services are more responsive to the needs and interests of clients.
Introduction – what is participation?
Participation is not rigid or formulaic, there are no shortcuts that can be followed; it is a process to work towards. Participation should not be feared but embraced, taken seriously and enjoyed.
Participation means different things to different people, even within the same organisation or service. There is not one right way, or even one wrong way, to participation. It is about recognising the benefits of an inclusive approach to tackling rough sleeping and finding what works for you and your clients. The best experts about a particular project are its own staff and clients!
When considering client involvement with other homelessness services (e.g. hostels, day centres), the avenues to encourage participation can seem relatively straightforward. However, the reactive nature of many street outreach teams and their workload may make participation seem too challenging. This does not need to be the case and clients, in particular former rough sleepers, can offer a great deal of experience to outreach services. The approach to achieving this can be diverse and exciting and can support many areas of service delivery, including improving relations with partner organisations and agencies. One suggested way is through relaying experiences of the streets to local police and enforcement agencies to support their work with rough sleepers.
Good practice: employing former rough sleepers at Tyneside Cyrenians and Thames Reach
Tyneside Cyrenians involves a high proportion of former rough sleepers, both in its night centre and its street outreach work. This appears to have benefits both in locating rough sleepers and engaging with them. One worker commented that being a former service user allowed him to be very assertive in encouraging the more entrenched rough sleepers to come off the streets:
“Because I know the majority that come through, I tell them straight, you can’t start anything if you haven’t got an address. Straight to the point and blunt.” Former Service User, now employee at Tyneside Cyrenians
There are issues to be taken in to account when employing former service users, particularly those related to drug or alcohol relapse and the possibility that they may at some stage need to use the services that they are employed by. However, this should not hold agencies back from employing former service users. Thames Reach has set a target of 20% of employees within five years who have previously accessed homelessness services.
For more links on service user involvement, see the Education Training and Employment handbook and Thames Reach’s Grow website. Also, please see the Streets Ahead - Good practice in tackling rough sleeping: A client's perpective report which examines service provision for rough sleepers from a client's perspective.
Philosophy of Involvement
What is most important is accepting that improvements can be made to the services delivered by involving the people who know what rough sleeping is like, and understand best what is needed for engagement and successful interventions.
The key message for street outreach services to consider when encouraging participation is the value of their clients' experience. Commissioners should be aware that
- clients are not ‘the problem’ – they must be part of the solution
- clients hold the key to solutions in their experiences and knowledge of sleeping rough
- clients have a right to the information they need to make informed choices about their lives
- clients and services can build communities and creative positive change by acting together.
Issues for involvement
Client involvement in a service must be of value to staff and clients alike. The following issues require consideration to ensure effective participation:
Choice – real choice is a long-term commitment. Rather than offering a limited set of options by asking “Do you want this?” it is often more effective to ask, “What do you want?”
Voice – people experiencing homelessness are often excluded from the decisions that affect them and rough sleepers in particular often feel they have a lack of choice. A lack of self-esteem and confidence is common. In order to encourage people experiencing homelessness to participate in service provision, it needs to ensure that their voices are heard and acted upon.
The voice of staff is crucial at all levels of organisational decision-making. The workers themselves need to feel empowered and involved if they are to encourage participation from clients. Addressing staff concerns and giving reassurance that participation is not a threat to them may be required to enable staff and clients to work together.
Taking control – putting clients' views at the centre of the service requires enabling people to make informed choices and find their own solutions. That means encouraging people to be in control of their own lives, rather than have things done for them.
Respect – seeing people who are currently, or have previously been rough sleeping, as part of the solution, requires a starting point of respect for everyone’s contributions.
Expectations and perceptions – it is better to be clear than let people down after unrealistically raising expectations. These four steps help to tackle this issue:
- vision – clear aims and objectives allow staff and clients to understand the outcomes of their increased involvement and input
- approach – setting out how the vision is to be achieved will help to define roles and break down any perceived threats and barriers. Effective planning with stakeholders will help to bring agreement on the level of participation on offer
- commitment – outlining the level of involvement from staff and clients. Differences of opinion should be addressed and a sense of shared ownership over the project and vision should be encouraged
- management – ensuring that those managing the project create a sense of trust amongst the clients, particularly in relation to the fairness and neutrality of the process.
Training – skills for staff and clients are important. Staff may require new facilitation and participatory methods skills while clients may need training and ongoing support to order to fully participate and contribute to decision-making.
Evaluation – thought should be given to how practice can be evaluated periodically to ensure quality. Questions that should be asked include: Was the approach correct? Was everybody able to contribute? Were concerns/ideas follow up and implemented? Was feedback given and recorded? Every member involved should be given time to consider how best to take forward the lessons learned for any future involvement activity.
Barriers to participation
High turnover of clients
Participation can be challenging when people access the service for a small amount of time then move on to sources of accommodation. When people move on, enthusiasm can ebb and flow. It is a significant barrier but not an impossible one to surmount. A good way to start is to think in advance of all the possible barriers to outreach service clients getting involved and work out how to overcome them.
Lack of resources
People often feel that money, time and space resources are required to develop participation. At first sight this may not seem easy to overcome, but often it is the case that services need to re-assess their priorities and ask the question “ How important is participation?”. By looking at what resources are committed where and taking a creative approach to accessing funds and venues, resource potential can be maximised.
Apathy
Apathetic attitudes to participation are not uncommon amongst both clients and staff and the nature of street outreach work can make encouraging participation particularly difficult. However, it is important not to be dissuaded or jaded by this and to try to think creatively to encourage interest.
Outreach services might feel that clients, either current or former, are not interested in becoming involved with decision making in their organisation. Although this may be true, it is likely that some people wish to contribute their opinions and time but feel that the options to do this are not available. Rather than assuming people are not interested, or are unable to participate fully for some reason, professionals need to find means of getting involved that are accessible and engaging for everyone.
There is no one way of working that will suit everyone. Different approaches are needed for different people, different services, different environments, and there need to be a range of different options for participation.
Tokenism
When setting up a participation programme, services need to ensure they are taking steps towards real participation and not simply making token gestures. Involving clients on the management committee may be a good idea. However, if it means involving only one person, who may not adequately represent the views of other service clients, then it might hamper progress rather than move things forward.
Organisational structure and culture
For participation to work effectively, it is necessary to have recognition from frontline staff to the senior managerial committee that input from clients has real value. Changing an organisation’s culture and working practices can be a difficult, slow process that may be met with resistance. It is important for staff and clients that are engaged in working together, to be aware of this in advance.
Raising unrealistic expectations
It is important to be honest and clear from the outset and establish what is negotiable and what is not. Making promises that can not be delivered can be very detrimental to the service and must be avoided.
Checklist
Checklist for starting participation in a street outreach service
How can client participation improve your service? To which parts of your service can clients realistically positively input?
What are the aims of increasing participation in your organisation? Can these aims be realistically met?
Has a timeline been set to meet outcomes? Has this timeline been agreed with all those involved?
Have the clients that are interested in participating been identified?
Have other participatory procedures been identified that protect client confidentiality for those who require it? (e.g. open complaints process, rating their assessment process)
What training needs to be offered to staff and clients?
Has the level of participation been agreed? What commitments are being asked for and which have been agreed?
How is the participation process going to be managed? Who will take responsibility for ensuring this?
What role will evaluation play? Are there fixed evaluation points? Can other clients be encouraged to feed into this process?
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