1. INSPIRATION Stephanie Plotnikoff
Scottish Homelessness Involvement and Empowerment Network (SHIEN)
SHIEN CONFERENCE March 31st 2010
I was putting together my presentation and having seen the booking forms coming in I realised we have (very happily) a very diverse audience.
Some of you we work with on a regular basis, some we’re meeting for the first time. Some were at our shared solutions events in Aberdeen and Stirling, Some of you I’ve met out and about doing presentations and workshops, some of you would have seen SHIEN presentations before and some of you are here for the first time and haven’t heard any of it, All of you are coming from such different places in terms of where in Scotland you’re from, whether you’re a service user policy maker or front line staff, whether you work in health or social work the voluntary or statutory sector, and I thought how am I going to make this interesting to all.
Got lots to say about SUI as many of you will know, so what I decided is to give you an information sheet in your packs, with the history, the thinking and the purpose of SHIEN etc….. all that you need to know is in there plus how to access support for involvement after you leave here.
Instead what I’d like to do is take you on a bit of whistle top tour of some of the particularly inspiring highlights and learning that have been shared across Scotland over the past couple of years since I’ve been coordinating SHIEN.

2. To start off with I want to talk a wee bit about Unheard Voices drama group who are performing here this afternoon. I have had the great pleasure of working with a drama group, Unheard Voices over the past few years.. The group are made up in the main of people who have experienced homelessness, they have been artistically directed by the past few years by very experienced volunteer drama coaches. They put across powerful messages around exclusion the theme of today's conference, and tackle many of the hard hitting issues of homelessness and multiple exclusion.
This slide shows a visual from their website and I’d like to say thanks to a very talented volunteer Ed who has designed it.
The website is being launched and goes live today.
What’s wonderful about drama is that there is no one that can’t benefit from this type of service user involvement, the cast report (as you can imagine) increased confidence levels and love doing it. Audience evaluations have consistently fed back that staff, managers, secondary students, community members, service providers, enjoy the medium, have been inspired to make changes on the basis of performances and they remember much more through this medium. Have performed locally at community workshops and also city wide conferences, Scottish Government and hostels to name but a few.

3. ‘Much better than being talked at.’
‘Through doing the performances my confidence has grown a great deal.’
‘It was a great way to find out about some of the issues for service users’
‘Much better than being
talked at.’
These are some quotes from our actors and our audiences.

4. ---------------------------------
This slide shows a clip from one of the groups plays that tackled service user involvement. The play focussed on one of the most common methods of involving service users, the comments box. And highlighted that even one as simple as a comments box still needs some thought.
There where three main messages in the play and all are strong messages that apply to most service user involvement activity.
The first is the recognition that no one method of service user involvement will work for everyone, for example a comments box is no good to someone who can’t read or write or doesn’t speak English.
It is only a useful tool if it is emptied regularly and feedback is given.
The play also emphasizes that sometimes people might not want staff to see them make a complaint, and so although it’s important that a comments box is in a well trafficked spot, it should not be in a staff area
I’ve had lots of feedback about the difficulties staff find in doing service user involvement. I’ve had much feedback to say staff struggle with getting service users to come to meetings, use comments boxes, that service user involvement can be a high resource etc. We can share with you lots of ideas and tips about good practice with all these activities but it might be that even if you do everything right, in some cases meetings and comments boxes aren’t the best or the only methods for your particular service.

5. The Waiting Room
So you could try something different. Here’s one very simple idea that was suggested. For example, generally people are bored out their minds sitting in waiting rooms, and would like nothing better than to talk to someone about what their experience of services is, good or bad. Including why it is that they don’t come to meetings.
So the staff member can sit and talk to service users in the corner of a waiting room, and pick up lots of information in 1:1 interviews. The benefits are it can cost a lot less than meetings and picks up people who might not be able or might not want to attend meetings.

6. The Talking Wall
And another great suggestion that came out of our
shared solutions workshops last year, a staff member was saying how much she struggled to get young people to attend residents meeting. She bought a big sheet of wallpaper, put it up in a communal area with loads of markers wrote at the top, how can we do things better.
She reported that lots of meaningful suggestions and improvements to the project had come about as a result of just doing this.
This could also be adapted to ask specific questions each month that you want to consult on.

7. YOU SAID WE DID WHY WE DIDN’T
So often when you ask service users if they use comments boxes, go to meetings etc and the response is no, a reason that often comes up is that people don’t believe their involvement or opinion will make any difference. So feedback is vital and its surprising how often staff work really hard to get everything right and forget this last part.
A great method of feeding back is…..
You said, we did why we didn’t
This is one of the best methods of feeding back that I’ve seen
You can do this by a poster, a leaflet, a newsletter, even better, all 3. Every suggestion formally or informally over a month period gets written up. Says what the suggestion was, what is or will get done about it and or why not.
Great! Let’s people know they’ve been listened to, see change, influences services and even in the case of nothing being done, helps staff perspective to be better understood.
The great thing about this is that service users can also get involved in designing the ways to feedback, developing posters, newsletters etc….it’s a good starting off point for threading service user involvement in to other areas of services.
Though it’s important to keep in mind that involvement should be at what ever level most suits the person involved.

8. There are also all sorts of creative ideas that can work with service user involvement. This is a wonderful project that I came across at the Shared Solutions event in Aberdeen this year.
The Salvation Army ran an art project with service users participating and generating ideas. They expressed their feelings around homelessness, including mental health and addictions issues by painting images onto mannequins. The results are very powerful, I’ve put a couple of slides together for you to see.
The mannequins have been travelling ever since raising awareness of Service User Involvement, homelessness and issues around multiple exclusion, and the work of the Salvation Army.
They have been in High Street shops like Frasers and Debenhams, Glasgow Concert Hall and G Star and Exile Clothing, they have been in churches and currently reside in the London Salvation Army’s Art Gallery.

9. Inspired to be supporting…..
So SHIEN has been working within a local context, and a national context. We are also supporting the European Campaign to Ending Homelessness and raising awareness of the 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. This campaign has 5 main objectives for ending homelessness which are the following….
No one sleeping rough
No one living in emergency accommodation for longer than is an ‘emergency’
No one living in transitional accommodation longer than is required for successful move-on
No one leaving an institution without housing options
No young people becoming homeless as a result of the transition to independent living
These are obviously very important objectives and we are proud to be involved in the campaign.

10. www.ghn.org.uk/shien THE WEBSITE
So, just a a snapshot of service user involvement activities and ideas that SHIEN has been involved in over the past couple of years.
If you subscribe to SHIEN you will receive a free toolkit which will give a lot more detail around a whole host of practical tips, guidance and good practice in service user involvement activities and much of this is also shared on our website.

11. I also wanted to share with you the following article published
In November in the Evening Times.
“One-time homeless man is now digital hero
A GLASGOW man who has experienced homelessness and social deprivation has been declared Scotland's Digital Hero in TalkTalk's Digital Heroes awards. Wallace Blake who has experienced homelessness and social deprivation has been declared Scotland's Digital Hero. He will be awarded £5,000 to enhance his project.”
We would like to congratulate Wallace on his award. Wallace Blake kindly volunteers on the SHIEN advisory group and spoke at one of our shared solutions events last year. He has developed an information directory for service users and service providers on information for services in Glasgow.
He said: and I quote "Winning this award secures the project for another year and we will be able to buy the hardware needed to update, promote and manage the library, making the service accessible to all.“
I was talking to Wallace recently and he said that he puts much of his success over the past year down to the empowerment he has experienced through service user involvement. Wallace is here today and has brought further information that can be found in the exhibition area.

12. “When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless.
But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.”
- anonymous service user quote.
Lots of lots of great ideas, service user champions and inspiration out there, only a small amount of which I was able to share today.
I have been privileged to come across many inspirational projects over the last few years, that I would like to go into much more detail about….. Like a Young single persons housing project where the service users designed a young persons booklet, which is very professional, artistic and well laid out. The booklet highlights information about the project including access, what the project offers and service user rights. All designed by young people.
I met a young man who had experienced homelessness who’s a Scottish rapper and he has an album coming out that will be publicized by the council and proceeds will go toward supporting a young people’s project and other charities.
But much of this has been written up on the SHIEN website if you want to explore further. And the site is continually updated so if you want to be included please let us know.