Carers and Service Users and if/when the twain should meet????

Have read posting on Mental Health Service User's Blog...and there was reference to issues around funding. As in when groups are in competition to get funding.

Have responded to that posting...waiting for approval (story of my life..Ha! ha!)..anyway, I forgot to add that the merging of the local carers' group with the MH service user rep group seems a bit odd to me because the carers' group is for people who care for others with physical disabilities as well as mental health problems and the MH service user group represents (supposedly, and I have still yet to actually see it happen) people with mental health problems. Not sure quite how that is all going to fit together.

I reckon it is a merging because of the need for funding for either one of those bodies or both. The carers' group is under the umbrella of Rethink (a charity which is much better at supporting carers locally than people with mental illness) and the SU group is under the Mind (A charity that takes more locally from people than it actually gives) umbrella.

I wrote this more as an addendum to the other posting but also out of concern that in order to get funding charities often dumb down or lose the really good services they provide to people for the good of the greater HOLE!

My view on whether it is right for carer and SU groups to work together is yes, as long as the needs of one group do not overshadow the needs of the other. As someone who sort of fits (but not really) in both camps, I can see that I could very easily be compromised or feel that way..depending on how I am viewed by either group and what their agendas are.