A user led evaluation of an independent Living facility

In the areas of auditing and evaluating existing services and identifying the priorities for service development, the needs, experiences, priorities and views of users and carers are crucial. This information is often best collected by other service users or carers as it is using the experts, who are also in a good place to get other users to speak. There are major barriers to user participation in any evaluation when there are concerns that speaking openly could put at risk a valued service or facility, or make them very vulnerable.

For example, the residents of an independent living unit felt able to present an honest picture of their experiences of care to a small team of trained user evaluators precisely because they were being interviewed by other disabled service users. Commissioned by funders of a follow on project, the user evaluators worked with a wider reference group of service users to identify the purpose of the evaluation, the questions it needed to answer, develop tools that were participatory, acceptable and credible, and analyse, reflect on and judge the evidence. The criteria they developed around issues like independence and their data analysis drew on years of experience and direct knowledge.

In this situation the evaluation becomes a tool of change, bringing gains for both services and individuals. The evaluation of the independent living facility led to major changes, enabling users to have more choice and control in their lives, as well as influencing the design of the new development. Individuals learnt new skills, their organisation developed wider networks, and local purchasers and providers gained access to users with evaluation skills. There was resistance from the service providers to a user research team, but they saw the research process was fair, open and involved the support of an independent evaluator, so had to take the findings seriously. The end product of the evaluation was the empowerment of the people who were part of the work as well as the report and the action that followed. The drawback was that like all participatory processes, it took time, money, facilitation, support, skills, and training.

Philippa Chapman, a consultant with the trust has written about her experiences Helping organisations to move forward....