A participatory local improvement project in Leeds
The ‘Two Heads are Better Than One’ project was established in an inner city area with a large African Caribbean population and focused on improving the services provided by an acute psychiatric hospital to the Black communities. The project held a ‘search conference’ to establish areas for development, produced a short summary of local needs including a video of Black service user / survivor stories and statements. Several small project plans were generated to achieve improvements and Action Learning sets created to work on implementation of the project plans over the next six months. A report has been produced of the project and is currently being put onto the National Institute for Mental Health in England website.

Disability Resource Centre evaluation by disabled people in Hertfordshire
This short study was set up to evaluate how a disability resource centre could move towards being run and managed by disabled people. A feasibility study was conducted and a report on the process of making the Centre service user-led was produced.

A Housing Association in North London providing supported housing for people with learning disabilities
We undertook a major review of service quality in all of the Housing Associations establishments with a service user-led evaluation using a one-to-one interview methodology with residents and staff focus groups. An evaluation report was produced with detailed recommendations.

Participatory evaluation of short-term breaks for disabled children in Greenwich, London
This study enabled disabled children to come together and voice their concerns about short-term breaks away from their parents; workshops and focus groups were held for children and sample of families were visited and interviewed. A report was produced with full recommendations for a re-shaping of short-term break services in this Borough.

Consultancy on RECC implementation

We have provided tailored ocnsulatncy packages to assist CSIP Regions and commissioners  of the RECC T4T programme to establish an infrastructure and evaluation framework for the roll-out of RECC Training to local Practitioners.