User involvement in the charity sector in terms of employed users

The mental health charities usually employ a lot of people with lived experience. It is something which they pride themselves upon and it is my guess that, in terms of numbers, they employ more people with some form of mental or physical disorder than any other charity sector. I would guess they also have more senior people who've experienced nhs treatment of some form for mental disorder.

There is a good reason for this. Involving people inside the campaigning organisations means campaigns are better informed. It also means there's less need to check with their stakeholders - those they campaign for - what is important and what isn't.

For example, many people on benefits would say they want more money. A person who works and hasn't experienced the benefits system may be unlikely to understand just how hard it is to leave a full life while on benefits. Scrimping and saving make it possible to have a sub standard rather than outright awful standard of life but there are still many good things which people on benefits miss out on.

The organisations also have to be made to allow people with a variety of mental disorders to work together to achieve the goal set down by the stakeholders. This means their workplace structures - their policies and practices - are designed around allowing people to work who might otherwise be unable to work in unadapted work environments.

This creates the test bed for the possibilities of helping the mentally ill to work rather than the too often practice of starting them on benefits with the expectation that they'll be on benefits for life. This is the compassion which can result in a bad outcome because it creates disability. The saftey of not having to work reduces distress and may help reduce the individual's burden because of certain symptoms but the long term loss of a normal life can be a cause of distress later on in life. Poverty is also a factor which creates worse outcomes in life.

Involvement through employment solves a lot of these problems and offers benefits for the charity. The mental health charities lead the way as far as I am aware and other charities also follow suit. They're also creating the employment policy and practice which would work in other organisations who have different objectives (and where the value of involvement is less).

The involvement through employment in charities has created the systems for other organisations, the proverbial 'lifts and ramps' which can help to reduce disability and disadvantage in the workplace for all people .

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