User Involvement Seminar
The European Coalition for Community Living invited the participants to join representatives of disability organisations, service providers and self advocates, as well as representatives of governmental agencies, the European Commission and the Council of Europe at the User Involvement Seminar on 20 - 21 April 2007 in Zagreb, Croatia.
The User Involvement seminar was aimed at representatives of disability organisations, service providers, self-advocates, professionals, local and national government representatives and academics.
The seminar also aimed to contribute to the promotion and development of quality community-based services for people with disabilities by exploring the following questions:
- What are the good practices in the involvement of users of services in their development, delivery and quality evaluation?
- What are the challenges to user involvement and how to overcome them?
- What are the current policies on the European and national levels?
- What is the current situation with the provision of community-based services for people with disabilities?
- How can we ensure that community-based services for people with disabilities are truly user-led?
The User Involvement seminar was organised by the European Coalition for Community Living (ECCL), in cooperation with the Association for Promoting Inclusion, Croatia. ECCL is a cross disability initiative which works towards the social inclusion of people with disabilities by promoting the provision of comprehensive, quality community-based services as an alternative to institutionalisation. It was founded by Autism Europe, the Center for Policy Studies of the Central European University, the European Disability Forum, the European Network of Independent Living, Inclusion Europe, Mental Health Europe and the Open Society Mental Health Initiative. Conclusions and recommendations of the User Involvement seminar were promoted and implemented by members of ECCL.