Promoting involvement
Carr-Gomm is committed to involving clients in the organisation and wants services to meet the clients’ needs and wishes. We support and promote clients’ involvement in a number of ways. For example:
- through organising meetings at every level of the organisation and conferences, where a larger number of clients can meet
- through training our support staff to work with clients in an empowering way, so that they are equipped to encourage involvement
Choice and commitment
If clients want to complain about our services or to suggest improvements, they know that they can speak up and be listened to.
“A compact is the best way of formalising and guaranteeing involvement for clients. It spells out very clearly what’s on offer”
Our Clients’ Compact – Choice and Commitment – is an agreement between Carr-Gomm and all clients about the support we offer to enable them to participate. A steering group of clients helped to develop the Compact’s content and design, working with the Client Involvement Officers and other staff.
Contact
Our clients trust Carr-Gomm to deliver what we say and to make sure that they are safe and supported. To give them confidence in the organisation, we provide clear information about our policies, for example, on health and safety and what to do if things go wrong.
Our quarterly magazine, Contact, is just one of the ways to reach all our clients with news that affects them and to tell them what we have changed in response to their comments. Grabbing the headlines this year have been articles about how people can get involved in staff recruitment and advice on getting a job. We also give feedback from regional and national meetings and a flavour of what activities are going on around the country.
Working strategically
The Client Involvement Team have developed a strategy to clarify the work they do and their aims for Carr-Gomm’s client involvement over the next three years. The document outlines the steps they will take to increase the number of clients being involved in key decisions in Carr-Gomm and the number of opportunities for clients to get involved.
The strategy also states that the team will work to develop and number of measures to help Carr-Gomm define the benefits and outcomes of client involvement work.
External training
Carr-Gomm also aims to promote user involvement to external organisations and so we offer training and advice to other organisations through Consult Carr-Gomm, our consultancy and training arm, which was set up with support from Lloyds TSB Foundation for England & Wales.
Our training is designed to improve the knowledge and skills of staff, trustees and service users in public, private and voluntary sector organisations providing housing, care and support to vulnerable people. Open the Consult Carr-Gomm website in a new window for more information.
