Get Involved Statement

In order to help us improve our services, Oak Tree Care Services has developed a Get Involved Statement which summarises:

• Our Priorities for Service User Involvement
• Our Service User Involvement Governance structure
• Resources and support for Service Users to get involved
• How Service Users can get involved
• Promotion of Service User involvement.
  

Statement

Engaging with our Service Users and working with them is central to Oak Tree Care Services mission of creating places where people want to live. By working directly with our Service Users they will help us to improve the quality of the services we deliver.

The aim of Oak Tree Care Services strategy is to ensure that there is a clear framework in place to promote and strengthen greater participation. We recognise and welcome the contribution of our Service Users in influencing and shaping services and Oak Tree Care Services is committed to ensuring that Service Users continue to have their say on how we manage their homes and provide services.

Ultimately, it is for Service Users to decide how they are involved and the level of their involvement, this will largely depend on their individual circumstances. However, Oak Tree Care Services will continue to facilitate a range of options for involvement in consultation with Service Users to minimise the barriers to involvement and to increase the participation of all Service Users, particularly groups who have traditionally been under-represented.

Oak Tree Care Services are committed to ensuring that our Service Users continue to remain at the heart of what we do.

1. Our Priorities

• Providing a range of opportunities for Service Users to be involved and consulted which will lead to service improvement.
• Involving Service Users in shaping our services.
• Empowering our Service Users to influence decision-making.
• Providing resources and training to support our Service Users to become more involved.
• Ensuring our governance structure strengthens accountability and improves transparency to Service Users.
• Ensuring that Service Users are involved at all levels in our governance structure
• Increase Service User satisfaction through more involvement and consultation.
• Promote Service User engagement in our neighbourhood investment activities.
• Ensure that Service Users have equal opportunities to take part in involvement and take active steps to engage with hard–to-reach and vulnerable Service Users.

2. Involvement in Governance

Service Users are involved in the governance of Oak Tree Care Services and influence key decision making in Oak Tree Care Services.

Our Governance arrangements, aim to be:

• Transparent
• Representative
• Accountable
• Clearer and simpler
• Effective

We will evaluate our new Service User involvement structure to determine whether it is delivering its key aims.

3. Our Resources

We will support and enable Service Users to become more involved by providing the necessary resources, training, expenses and relevant literature.

We will continue to develop our monitoring of how much is spent on our Service User involvement activities to influence our future budgets.

We will monitor the outcomes of our Service User involvement activities in order to assess how they add value.

4. Promoting the Ways to Get Involved

We recognise that there are a variety of ways for residents to get involved at Oak Tree Care Services.

We will continue to:

• Promote involvement through various methods of consultation
• Explore more creative and innovative ways for resident involvement.
  

5. Consultation

We will:

• Consult with Service Users on policies, procedure and in key service areas in order to improve service delivery.
• Continue to build up a database of Service Users who want to be involved.

6. Feedback on Our Performance

We will actively listen to the feedback we receive from our Service Users and will continue to measure our performance against our service promise and publish this information via our website and the Service Users’ annual review.

7. Training

We will continue to encourage and support our Service Users to be involved by providing a tailored training programme and regularly reviewing it to ensure we are delivering the maximum benefit to our Service Users.

We will promote and support training for staff to increase their knowledge and awareness of Service User involvement.

8. Equality of Opportunity

Each Neighbourhood will develop a hard-to-reach-strategy to identify and work with hard-to-reach and vulnerable groups.

We will pilot local initiatives to encourage more representation of hard-to-reach and vulnerable groups.

We will continue to develop a profile of our Service Users by recording and monitoring information about ethnicity, vulnerability and disability and using this information to develop our services.