Involving people with Lived and Living Experience meaningfully in Action Planning: Resources and Guidance

A copy of this document is available to print and download here. 

Overview

As part of the action planning process, it is important to consider how you will involve people with lived and living experience of alcohol and/or drug use, as well as their family members/carers, to gain feedback and apply their experience in the future design and delivery of alcohol and drug services. Meaningful, trauma informed engagement should be embedded into the development of the pathway, ensuring it is person-centred and meets the need of those accessing it. 

The Charter of Patient Rights and Responsibilities ((Charter of patient rights and responsibilities - revised: June 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)) states that people have the right to be involved in the development of health and social care services they access, as well as placing responsibilities on health services to ensure people are involved in decisions about their care. Learning from personal experiences of people makes services safer, more efficient, improves person centeredness and effectiveness, particularly when people who use services are involved in a meaningful way (HIS Improving quality through participation).

Participation of people who use services is a key element of a Human Rights based approach, which requires that people are supported to be active citizens and that they are involved in decisions that affect their lives.(Planning with People - Health and social care - Planning with People: community engagement and participation guidance). People with lived and living experience have first-hand of a service or health need and, alongside their families and loved ones, offer unique and helpful insights into how our system performs and how it feels to engage in it.

Working with organisations who facilitate and nurture engagement from people who use services as well as their families and loved ones, increases the range of ways people can get involved in the design and delivery of health services, whilst simultaneously creating safe spaces, peer support and incentives that encourage participation. The involvement of people with lived and living experience in the development of services enables service providers to understand needs, be more accountable, open, and transparent with people who access their services, therefore, building a person centred, and trusted service (Involving people with lived and living experience of alcohol, drug and homelessness services).

The purpose of this resource is to support Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADP) in their involvement of people with lived and living experience of alcohol and/or drugs, as well as their family members/carers, in developing a residential rehabilitation pathway action plan. The tools and guidance can support ADPs to plan, action and review engagement, in a meaningful and person-centred way.

Guidance

The following information provides helpful resources, guidance, and tools to support effective and meaningful engagement with people with lived and living experience, as well as their family members and/or carers. This guidance forms the core pillars of good practice engagement and should be used in conjunction with each other to support the development of the involvement of people with lived and living experience and their family members throughout action planning.

Planning with People: community engagement and participation guidance

Health and social care - Planning with People: community engagement and participation guidance - updated 2024 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

‘Planning with People’ sets out how members of the public can expect to be engaged with by NHS Boards, Integration Joint Boards and Local Authorities.

Purpose of the guidance

• Effective community engagement and the active participation of people is essential to ensure that Scotland’s care services are fit for purpose and lead to better outcomes for people.
• The Scottish Government and COSLA have developed this guidance to support greater collaboration between those making decisions about care services in Scotland, those delivering services, and people in communities who are affected.
• This guidance supports public service planners, commissioners, and providers to consider how to continually improve the ways in which people and communities can become involved in developing services that meet their needs.
• To achieve meaningful and effective engagement, leaders must demonstrate a commitment to it and take action to embed it within their organisations. As well as improving practice, this guidance supports existing legal obligations for engagement and participation.
• Engagement that takes place routinely helps to develop trust between communities and public bodies, fosters mutual understanding, and makes it easier to identify sustainable service improvements.

National Standards for Community Engagement

National Standards for Community Engagement | SCDC - We believe communities matter

National Standards for community engagement

The visual above sets out the 7 national standards for community engagement. For further understanding of each standard please see - National Standards for Community Engagement | SCDC - We believe communities matter

The national standards for community engagement describe the main parts of effective community engagement. They provide statements that everyone involved can use to achieve the highest quality results and the greatest impact.

The Standards are intended to act as a central benchmark and reference point for best practice and are designed to reflect the developing policy relating to participation, engagement, and community empowerment in Scotland.

Participation tools

Participation resources

There are a wide range of participation resources available through HIS Community Engagement which support Health and Social Care Partnerships to engage meaningfully with people with Lived and Living Experience (LLE).

These include a number of engagement and evaluation tools:

• Participation Toolkit | HIS Engage – A range of engagement methods, guidance, and tools to support person centred involvement activities.
• Participation Groups | HIS Engage – Guidance to set up and maintain public involvement groups which support the development of health services.
• Engaging people and communities: step by step | HIS Engage – planning engagement with key questions
• Evaluating participation | HIS Engage- An evaluation guide to participation
• Quality Framework for Community Engagement and Participation | HIS Engage – supporting the delivery of effective engagement, including self-evaluation

Trauma informed and Human rights-based approach to engagement

These engagement resources, tools and guidance are not exclusively designed for people who have experience of alcohol and/or drugs, therefore it is essential that a trauma informed approach to engagement is applied.  An example of engaging with people who have experience of alcohol and/or drugs in a trauma informed way can be found here Involving people with lived and living experience of alcohol drug and homelessness services. This includes a checklist for involving people with lived and living experience in service redesign in alcohol, drug, and homeless services. It is important that when engaging, people are supported by third sector or other support organisations.  Further information on trauma informed practice can be found here Trauma-informed practice: toolkit - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

When engaging with people, it is important that a Human Rights Based Approach is applied, ensuring that people’s rights are at the centre of policies and practice. The PANEL principles help individuals, services and organisations understand what this means in practice, these are:

• Participation
• Accountability
• Non-Discrimination
• Empowerment
• Legality

Further guidance and information on how to apply the PANEL principles when engaging with people can be found here Human Rights Based Approach | Scottish Human Rights Commission

VOiCE (voicescotland.org.uk)

VOiCE (voicescotland.org.uk)

Building on the National Standards for Community Engagement detailed in section 1.2, Visioning Outcomes in Community Engagement (VOiCE) is a planning and recording tool that supports people and organisations to design and deliver effective community engagement. The VOiCE tool can be used for analysing, planning, monitoring, evaluating, and recording community engagement which has been developed and supported by the Scottish Government to support the implementation of the National Standards for Community Engagement.

VOiCE promotes the use of a plan, do, review approach to engagement:

Engaging with family members and/or carers

The Scottish Government’s Rights, respect and recovery: alcohol and drug treatment strategy  states that services should ‘ensure all families will have access to support in their own right and, where appropriate, will be included in their loved one’s treatment and support’. 

Engagement with Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs (SFAD) identified that family members are often supporting their loved ones to navigate a complex system to access the services they need. It is important that family members and carers are involved and engaged in the planning and design of alcohol and drug services, being able to provide insights and sharing their experiences of supporting a loved one to access the care and treatment they need.

Further resources and information are available on the SFAD website www.sfad.org.uk.

Quick access resource and guidance table

Further support

Information in this document highlights helpful and good practice resources to inform your action planning. If you would like to discuss any of the guidance and resources further or require additional support, please contact the HIS Pathway to Recovery team:

• his.housing@nhs.scot

The team can also support by signposting to local as well as national recovery communities and services and by sharing best practice.