Benefits for service user employees

The benefits for service user employees are many, including increased self-worth, hope and a route away from the difficult aspects of daily life, all wrapped up in a meaningful job with high levels of satisfaction and personal and professional rewards

Self-worth

• Increased self-confidence, self-esteem and self-respect

• Gaining respect from others

• Being trusted and relied upon by others
• Gaining positive feedback
• The chance to leave old labels behind, such as ‘client’, ‘homeless person’, ‘mental health issue’, and take on new labels, such as ‘member of staff’, ‘colleague’, ‘trainee’ and ‘employee’
• Raised expectations of team members and supervisor
• Negative experiences are transformed into something that can be put to very positive use
• Being a positive role model to other service users

• The opportunity to give to others
• Contributing to the improvement of the organisation and the services it delivers

Positive daily life

• Employment provides structure and a routine focused on positive, confidence-building activities
• It provides a regular escape from the negative aspects of daily life experienced by many service users, including boredom, anxiety, chaotic people and substance misuse

• It presents the opportunity to meet new people and build new social networks around the positive experience of work
• Earning a salary means the employee can gain economic independence and an opportunity to be financially self-sufficient
• Work life counteracts the potential institutionalisation of hostel life and the role of ‘service user’
• An employee becomes a member of a team, and can develop a sense of belonging

Job satisfaction

• Employment is genuine, and not a manufactured exercise to make up the numbers. While volunteering is ‘practice’, employment is real
• A deepened sense of purpose
• Individuals are given a second chance and the opportunity to support and model this through their work
• The ability to connect to the client group as a result of their first-hand experience of homelessness
• Putting experience to good use – to provide knowledge and expertise for colleagues to tap into, and to be a role model for the aspirations of the organisation for clients, adding greater credibility to the organisation’s ethos
• Concentrating on client’s abilities and aptitudes rather than concentrating on their issues
• Having ownership of their work
• Assisting service users to contribute to society

Hope for the future

• Experience of work and the new skills and qualifications gained opens up further opportunities and routes into employment
• A sense of hope for the future – one employer agency commented that service users are accustomed their key worker having hope on their behalf, but that the experience of gaining employment gives them first-hand experience of hope, which is extremely powerful

• A second chance – a genuine opportunity to start again