ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors describe what the survey participants were currently doing during the day, their aspirations for the future and the kind of help they had received or wanted to achieve then. Many participants in both the survey and focus groups spoke of the need for mental health services to make links with the employment world, directly helping service users into paid jobs, and to set an example themselves by ensuring employment opportunities are available to service users. Since the survey was carried out, some progress has been made in addressing many of the barriers identified by the service users the people spoke to. In employing service users as interviewers, research project itself provides evidence of the valuable resource represented by people who use mental health services. All the interviewers proved to be committed and skilled and the study benefited greatly from their involvement, as research in the US suggests.
