At Seetec — an employee-owned organisation — we have always believed that ownership and choice are central not just to how we operate as a business, but to how individuals succeed on their rehabilitation journey.
This belief isn’t just philosophical — it’s grounded in evidence and lived experience.
Compliance Vs Commitment
Traditional models of mandated engagement — where attendance at appointments or activities is required — often focus on compliance. But rehabilitation, reintegration and lasting change cannot be achieved through compliance alone.
What we see every day in our community services, correctional rehabilitation work, and within our Community Interest Company Pluss, is that voluntary engagement is more impactful because it is rooted in conscious choice.
Rather than assuming mandated attendance automatically leads to meaningful participation, research suggests that higher proportions of court-mandated clients are associated with higher rates of non-compliance compared with services that have more voluntary participants.
In a nationally representative study of 330 outpatient substance misuse treatment organisations, those with 75 % or more court-mandated clients had significantly higher rates of clients failing to comply with their treatment plans than organisations with 25 % or fewer mandated clients.
This indicates that mandates alone do not guarantee engagement or adherence in treatment processes compared to voluntary involvement.
When participation is voluntary — when a person chooses to engage — the dynamic changes. It’s an engaged choice which becomes an investment rather than an obligation.
Co-Design: From service delivery to shared ownership
The concept behind co-design is simple but profound: design with people, not for them. Research on participatory and co-designed services consistently highlights that when people are actively involved in understanding and shaping their support pathways, they are more likely to commit.
The resulting services are more likely to meet real-world needs and improve outcomes — especially when traditional barriers (such as stigma, power imbalance, or inaccessible processes) are acknowledged and adapted.
Co-design places agency in the hands of participants, allowing them to influence:
- Their personalised support plan
- The pace and nature of their rehabilitation
- The practical goals they want to achieve
This is more than participation — it’s ownership. And ownership is empowering.
Studies on participatory rehabilitation models that incorporate user voice have reported greater completion rates, higher participant satisfaction, and innovations emerging directly from lived insights — outcomes that wouldn’t have emerged through top-down design alone.
“This aligns perfectly with our trauma-informed approach; we recognise that many people we support bring with them complex criminogenic barriers, adverse past experiences, and systemic challenges. Empowerment — not enforcement — is often the differentiator between engagement and disengagement.
Rupert Nesbitt-Day, Director of Communities at Seetec
Walking the journey together
At Seetec, we don’t simply design services for people — we walk with them. We help participants with practical priorities such as:
- Finding stable housing
- Achieving good health
- Addressing addiction
- Managing finances
- Reintegrating into community life
Through co-design, these aren’t just goals set by professionals — they are goals chosen by individuals. This investment in personal agency creates stronger buy-in, stronger outcomes, and ultimately, stronger communities.
What does high engagement look like in practice?
Our own delivery mirrors this philosophy. In programmes where participation is voluntary and co-designed — such as our community-led reintegration initiatives — we consistently observe:
- higher attendance and loyalty among participants
- lower drop-out rates compared with mandated programmes
- participants reporting they feel “heard”, safe and valued
These organisational behaviours reflect what research also suggests: when people are meaningfully involved in creating the solutions that affect their lives, outcomes improve, and services evolve in ways that truly fit the communities they serve.
At Seetec, we are passionate about co-design and voluntarism because they put people’s voices at the centre of their journey. This is how we create services that don’t just work for people — but with them.
