The Service User Participation & Empowerment Scheme

A Framework HA Service for all of their Clients.

Facilitating Meetings in Projects
Text Box: SUPE regularly help facilitate client meetings in most accommodation projects and at some of the drop-ins that other projects have. By coming along on a regular basis we can make sure your opinions get heard. We feed back to staff and get their response to your comments & we give your comments to staff without using your name so clients find it safer to say what they want. We can also help you run your own meetings - look out for training events - you can get to know us and find out more about SUPE. We prefer to work with staff in running meetings. We don’t like it when meetings are known as “SUPE meetings” or staff feel that everything happens “behind closed doors”. We like it when staff are around to give “instant” feedback to clients. Our preferred model for these meetings is: Staff, clients and SUPE agree what the meeting is to talk about, creating an Agenda. Staff get a chance to bring up the things they want to and discuss them directly with clients. At some point, staff leave the meeting, giving clients a chance to speak to the SUPE worker. This time can be useful for clients to raise things they might not feel able to with staff present. Sometimes clients need a little encouragement to feel able to share negative things because they may feel that this would lead to problems with their support and/or housing. Our experience with Framework is that we have little evidence that someone raising a complaint has led to someone losing their housing or indeed their support. Staff then come back into the meeting. The SUPE worker can then feed back comments made, without using names. Staff can then answer the queries directly. Again, in our experience most of the things raised are due to poor communication or misunderstanding and can be resolved fairly easily . We find this way of us being involved means we are not a barrier to staff’s relationship with their clients and that responses made to the clients are quicker, misunderstandings resolved and communication improved. We have also noticed that clients feel more confident to say what they want when they see that they are taken seriously.

The SUPE Scheme is a Framework Service independently facilitated by Building Blocks Solutions