Participation

Beneficiaries, service-users, clients, or members, regardless of what they are called, do not want to simply be recipients of services provided by voluntary and community organisations.  They want to have the opportunity to be actively involved – to express their views, their needs, rights and ambitions – to actively participate.  How this can happen will be different depending on the nature of the beneficiaries and the service, but might include some of the following:

• Having representation on the management committee
• Having the opportunity to sit on a service-users panel that is regularly consulted on organisational issues that may affect service-users
• Being invited to participate in focus groups or workshops to develop a new organisational strategic plan, to identify key campaigning issues, or new policies and/or plans
• Having a service-user charter of rights
• Facilitating service-user advocates
• Conducting regular service-user satisfaction surveys and reporting on the findings and what actions are being taken as a result