A Model for Consumer Participation in Drug Treatment Services

"Consumer participation models typically incorporate varying degrees of involvement in service planning and delivery, ranging from the sharing of information and opinions about services to engaging in shared problem solving and joint decision-making (National Resource Centre for Consumer Participation, 2002)."(Page 1 "A Model for Consumer Participation in Drug Treatment Services")

Do you want to know more about service user involvement in Australia? Follow the link to source AVIL's document - "A Model for Consumer Participation in Drug Treatment Services "

This document will assist you to understand the various levels of service user participation as well as how your organisation can increase and provide opportunities for consumer participation.

Learn more about attitudes, activities and values around this most controversial area.
It is a great resource. It succinctly provides a framework for conceptualising and implementing consumer participation in drug treatment services. It provides examples of participation as a guide for the development of processes to involve health consumers in decision making about health service planning, policy development, setting priorities and quality issues in the delivery of health services' Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, 1998)

The document restates the Greater London Authority's view that "Treatment service users are not a single identifiable group or community and therefore individual consumers and consumer groups will want different degrees and forms of consumer involvement".

You will find the classification table within the document a significant resource when exploring further, how service users participate in your organisation. Click here for further information about Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen Participation, 1969. (This is adapted by Sandman) 

Interestingly the document moves back and forward using the Mental Health terminology of Consumer and the AOD Service User descriptors!