Sagatun

Financed by: Hedmark University College and Sagatun Brukerstyrt senter

Keywords: User-involvement, mental health, co-operativ inquiry, Goals and values

Summary:

The vision of a user-controlled center was introduced by Mental Helse Hedmark in 1997, with the aim of realization within 10 years. In 2004, the project «Brukerstyrt Senter Hedmark» was set on first priority by the Rådet for psykisk helse to be financed by the tv-based fund raiser «Hjerteromsaksjonen». The target group were people experiencing mental problems or drug problems.

 By the fall of 2005, the project was initialized. When the center was officially opened by HRH Mette Marit at the 7th of October 2009, after 120 000 hours of labour, the philosophy was clear: A center that would work for mental health for all kinds of people. Where all are on equal terms and be characterized as considerde. In five years the center has developed from being a local place to also perform regional and national tasks within user involvement and control, co-working with several userorganisations, colleges, municipalities and the Norwegian Health Department. 40 people use the center every day, several tenths of organizations meet at Sagatun, and more than 30 000 have visited the center since the work started in January 2006.

In todays Norwegian society, many companies and organizations are preoccupied with displaying their values and goals. Through a previous co-project between Hedmark University College and Sagatun Brukerstyrt Senter emerged from the user group that the rest of the society could learn about continuously recreating and maintaining the basic values and goals from Sagatun.

Action research is used in the study (co-operative inquiry) to ensure the need for empowerment and user-control of the study. For data collecting and action-moment, there were implied multistage focus-groupinterviews along with 14 co-researchers. The transcribed interviews were analyzed with qualitative content analyzes.