• feel empowered to have an influence in the    services they receive

• not be marginalized and discriminated against    by society in general

• be enabled to have the same quality of life as other    citizens

• that services should give users more choice and    control

• service users' expertise should be valued by    professionals and their advice acted upon

As long term users of services we are disempowered by our bad experience of using services and by being marginalized and discriminated against by society in general. By meeting together in our own organization, controlled by service users we find we can gain confidence and feel empowered to participate equally with professionals.

Because we understand and have experienced disempowerment and low self-esteem we recognize the importance of reaching out to other users who find it hard to speak out, e.g. older users, black users. We are a Network and value the views and work of all groups of users and individual users within the Network.

We are proactive in seeking opportunities fro participation and believe in setting our own agenda, starting with the services we think we should influence.

 In general we value most opportunities for participation which give most influence and power.