Some Useful Definitions
Service User Involvement: Service User Involvement is a way of enabling people to participate in decisions and actions that affect their lives.
Empowerment: The enabling of individuals to claim their rights, and to achieve their potential and aspirations. This is the principal behind and intended outcome of Involvement at the personal, social and political levels (although of course, personal empowerment maybe attained independently from any Involvement).
Service User: The people for whom homelessness services were created, and who currently use those services.
Volunteer: Those who contribute time and energy, do so of their own free will, and are not motivated by financial gain. Some services describe service user involvement as volunteering, for example when a person using the service takes up wider volunteering activities on behalf of the organisation.
