Learning from service users’ involvement: a research about changing stigmatizing attitudes in social work students

Abstract

Stigmatizing attitudes can create barriers to forming partnership with service users and to developing people’s empowerment. So, social work education must help students overcome their stigmatizing attitudes. A useful strategy for bringing about changes is service users’ and carers’ involvement in social work education, providing students with direct exposure to stigmatized people in roles that emphasize their humanity and strengths, rather than their deficits. The present study assessed the impact of a one-day meeting with service users and carers members of self-help and mutual-aid groups on freshman social work students. Students completed an adapted version of Attitudes to Mental Illness Questionnaire before and after the meeting, and answered several qualitative questions. Data comparisons suggest that after face-to-face contact with service users and carers, social work students showed reduced stigmatizing attitudes. Implications for further research and social work education are discussed.     

Outcomes focused user involvement in social work education: applying knowledge to practice

Abstract

This paper discusses an innovative approach connecting service user and carer involvement (SUCI) in social work education to social work practice. The research team, comprised service users, carers, social work students and module leader, worked collaboratively democratising the research process. At the University of Dundee, a core social work module facilitates students to spend 15 h with a service user and/or carer (host) gaining a unique insight into their everyday lives. During this time, hosts and students discuss two policy practice questions, responses to these questions are generating annual qualitative data, with study findings being disseminated at local and national level. The experiential learning students acquire from spending time with their host becomes the site of knowledge creation through involvement that is applied to practice. This paper reports on the narratives emerging from the longitudinal data (2012–2015, n = 90) on the changing landscape of social care in Scotland and the dissemination of project findings. We explore the intersection where the voices of service users and carers, student learning and social work practice coalesce. A model of outcomes focused SUCI is introduced as a template for meaningful, sustainable and outcomes-focused SUCI in social work education.     

‘Providing a Link with the Real World’: Learning from the Student Experience of Service User and Carer Involvement in Social Work Education

Social work has long placed an emphasis on involving users and carers in the education of practitioners, an emphasis driven by service users and carers themselves, the value base of social work, and by policy and legislation from successive governments and regulatory bodies. Recent changes in regulation and professional standards in social work suggest a continuing commitment to service user and carer involvement. This paper argues that in order to ensure a sustainable commitment, there needs to be greater evidence of the value and purpose of such involvement. Whilst there is a considerable body of literature on this issue in social work education, little focus is on any impact on current and future practice of social work students. The paper discusses a research project addressing this issue from the perspective of social work students. Findings suggest that the involvement of service users and carers in their training was perceived by students as overwhelmingly positive, should be enhanced and that they believed that these experiences were taken forward in their practice. The paper also identifies key points that could inform best educational practice.     

Building Capacity for Service User and Carer Involvement in Social Work Education

Requirements set out for the social work degree and post‐qualifying framework specify the involvement of service users and carers on a number of levels. Research indicates that service user and carer involvement can benefit students, professionals and service users and carers themselves. To keep up with demands placed on service users and carers by higher education institutions and other social work bodies, the issue of capacity needs to be addressed. This paper describes a programme (Getting Involved) designed by Skills for Care to build capacity to participate among service users and carers new to social work education. It describes the experience of piloting the programme in Dorset by a team at Bournemouth University consisting of service users and carers and staff from the Centre for Post‐Qualifying Social Work. Getting Involved is a welcome development and the outcomes of the pilot have been extremely positive for all involved. The process of undertaking and evaluating the pilot raised issues concerning setting up programmes, project management, service users and carers as co‐researchers and sustainability. These are discussed in terms of our experience and how they link with the literature. Lessons learnt and implications for similar work in the future are highlighted.     

Editorial

In recent years the imperative to involve service users and carers at every level of care, service and policy development has been extended to include involving users and carers in the training of health and social care professionals. Guidance on how this is to be achieved in practice is, however, limited. This paper describes work undertaken to explore how an Approved Social Work Programme in the north of England could involve service users and carers more fully and develop an integrated approach to service user and carer involvement in this and other social work programmes. Following a review of the literature in this area, the results of a series of meetings with individual and groups of service users and carers are presented, together with a survey of ASW programmes. It then goes on to consider the implications for service user and carer involvement in the new social work degree.     

Grassroots Networks: A Model for Promoting the Influence of Service Users and Carers in Social Work Education

We examine a process for involving service users and carers in a social work programme in Scotland and include the perspective of a service user involved in the development. We note the extent of service user and carer involvement within Scottish social work education. The Dundee system involves a regulated process of academics liaising with service user and carer groups in the locality, so that the expertise of service users and carers informs and influences social work qualifying training. The model is built on current ideas surrounding communication networks that work in non‐hierarchical ways. The paper emphasises the importance of basing a system on shared values and overcoming tokenistic approaches to involvement.     

Role-played interviews with service users in preparation for social work practice: exploring students’ and service users’ experience of co-produced workshops

Abstract

Within a Theory and Practice of Social Work module, prior to embarking on practice placements, social work students practised professional communication skills with people who had used social work services. They undertook role-played interviews with service users about real issues, which had led individuals to seek assistance in the past. Using principles of co-production, the workshop was developed in partnership with members of the University’s social work service users and carers’ group. Care was taken to safeguard service users’ well-being, as well as developing an effective learning opportunity. Drawing on evaluations by students and feedback from service users, this paper discusses the process of planning and delivering the workshops, as well as perceived outcomes for both groups. Findings indicate that students valued the opportunity to engage with service users, gaining key learning about their own practice skills. Service users described a boost to self-esteem through contributing to students’ learning. The workshop provides an example of how service user involvement in social work education has evolved from a primary focus on sharing personal testimonies to active participation in student skill development. It underlines the importance of investment in service user involvement to achieve an appropriate context for such projects to develop.     

Exploring the value of involving experts-by-experience in social work research: experiences from Slovenia and the UK

The evidence base for the methodological validity of conducting participatory research is becoming established. This article reviews the experiences of two researchers undertaking Ph.D. studies in Slovenia and UK, respectively, and considers the value of involving service users and carers in social work research. The Slovenian research involved user-researchers who developed research tools and undertook qualitative research. The first author explores the co-researchers’ impact on the research process and its outcomes, identifying both individual and collective empowerment of the co-researchers. The English study involved people from diverse backgrounds, who developed a recovery training programme for carers of people with schizophrenia. The second author describes how the steering group, and the carers who participated in the programme were impacted by the research process and experienced a sense of empowerment and how they influenced the development of new knowledge through the reflexive cycle. The authors draw out the commonalities and differences in our research that add to the existing evidence base supporting the development of participatory inquiry. We conclude by affirming the value of user participation in research in leading to the empowerment of users, the development of new research perspectives, and in contributing to theory in social work research and practice.     

Service users’ involvement in social work education: focus on social change projects

ABSTRACT

This article presents and analyzes four projects focusing on diverse forms of service users’ involvement in social work training and research in different countries (Israel, Italy, Slovenia and UK). It highlights the value of service user involvement (SUI) to specific social change objectives and to social work education. The conceptual framework focused on the Standpoint Theory, while methodologically participatory action research was applied, and evaluation measures were developed. Key findings, facilitators and limitations to the involvement, students’ views of it and similarities and differences among the four projects are outlined. The challenges embedded in introducing and sustaining social change objectives in a co-production framework within social work education are identified, alongside the added value of meeting them. The differentiated impact the projects had on students is highlighted as well as their significance for health and social care providers were relevant. It is encouraging that in each project SUI was positively valued. The projects indicate the wide range of SUI in the content and format of social work education, as well as its applicability cross-culturally to a range of key issues pertaining to both training and research in social work.     

Service user involvement in social work education: experiences from Germany and implications for a European perspective

ABSTRACT

Service user involvement (SUI) in social work education has gained widespread attention in Europe and other continents. Nevertheless, experiences on including service users in social work education have not been reported from Germany or other German-speaking countries to date. This paper reports preliminary experiences with implementing SUI in a bachelor’s programme of social work in a German University of Applied Sciences. The main goals of the current paper are (1) to provide a background for implementing service user approaches in Germany by introducing the structure of social work education in Germany; (2) to report experiences from a weekend seminar where service users worked together with students of social work in the framework of a curriculum of a German University of Applied Sciences and (3) to formulate some implications of these experiences for SUI across Europe. The main results were that introducing service user involvement into a German curriculum of social work is possible but needs careful reflection and planning. Experiences gathered in the weekend seminar with service users were encouraging for service users, students and teachers. We conclude that systematically implementing SUI into German curricula of social work is important.     

Service users and carers’ involvement in social work education: lessons from an English case study

Within the larger context of the search to improve social work practice in Europe, this article presents a case study of a UK innovation in social work education with the potential to radically change social work practice. Following governmental requirements, Anglia Ruskin University has introduced systematic involvement of service users and carers in the training of a new undergraduate degree since September 2003. The conceptual and value base, the structure, staffing, and main activities are outlined; the main achievements and obstacles are highlighted. Mindful of the danger of slipping into tokenistic involvement, the project has included an action research evaluation component exploring the views of all the project's stakeholders thus establishing the project as an evidence-based educational innovation. The findings highlight the value of service users and carers’ involvement on the qualifying social work degree, of the action research design of the evaluation, and the steps needed for the cultural change required for such an involvement to become more comprehensive and embedded in the degree.     

Facilitating Shared Online Group Learning between Carers,Service Users and Social Work Students

We report on our progress in developing a pilot online group teaching innovation with 14 participants, including five service users and carers, and nine social work students. Enhancing student learning by providing shared educational opportunities between students, service users, and carers can be a challenge to organise but the project demonstrates some success in doing so. The evaluation suggests that even the smallest level of service user and carer involvement can enhance student learning and personal development during social work education and training.     

Are you ready? Qualifying social work students’ perception of their preparedness to work competently with service users from sexual and gender minority communities

Social workers come into contact with lesbian, gay and bisexual and trans people in all areas of their practice and across all service user groups. In line with professional requirements, social work educators must ensure that students who complete qualifying programmes successfully meet the standards expected of them as registered social workers, including those around diversity. This study aims to explore the extent to which qualifying social work students feel prepared to practise competently with people from sexual and gender minority communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with final-year social work students at one university in southern England and the results were analysed using thematic analysis. Whilst these students report feeling generally prepared to practise with sexual minority communities, they report feeling unprepared to practise competently with gender minority communities. Themes that emerged in relation to students’ perceived lack of preparedness included unfamiliarity, limited knowledge, fear and an absence of opportunities to consider relevant issues during their social work training. Whilst this research relates to a small-scale study at one university, these findings may have broader implications for social work educators in terms of course planning and delivery, particularly around ensuring that students feel ready for practise with all service users.     

Involving Service Users in Social Work Management Education: What Makes it Meaningful According to the ‘Experts’?

Course leaders have adopted a relatively cautious approach to involving service users and carers in Post-Qualifying (PQ) social work management education programmes in the UK, looking for opportunities in which it ‘makes sense’ for them to be included. Whilst there is, to a certain extent, the belief that involving service users and carers in PQ social work education is ‘a good thing’, it has proved challenging to implement. This research study sought to explore, through interviews with ‘experts’ in the field, why this process had proved so challenging. A term which emerged during the research was the importance of ‘meaningful involvement’. The research explored what ‘meaningful involvement’ might mean for managers, for academics and also for service users and carers; what it looks like and how might it take forward the understanding of and the preparation for PQ social work management education.     

Service User Involvement in Social Work Education: A Case Example

The financial resources provided by the General Social Care Council (GSCC) which supports the education and registration of social workers, has allowed for an increase in user involvement in social work programmes in England and Wales. This article discusses the sources of knowledge appropriate for social workers and social care workers including the significance of the service user knowledge base for social work theory and practice. A project is described which involved students in a consultation process with service users whose role it was to contribute to the students' learning in a particular area, specifically understanding their experience of social workers and the issues of discrimination which they faced and the processes which were helpful in resisting oppression.     

The Caring Experience: Learning about Community Care through Spending 24 Hours with People Who Use Services and Family Carers

This paper describes a teaching and learning initiative developed in a UK social work programme that has involved carers, service users, academic social work staff and practitioners. Post‐graduate student social workers spend 24 hours in agreed periods with family carers or people who use social work services. The paper explains the origins of this initiative, rooted in a model of service user and carer involvement established over a number of years within the social work programme at the University of Dundee, Scotland. The development of this teaching and learning method is outlined and an account is given by a family carer describing their experience of being involved in the programme. Findings from the evaluation of this first year of operation are reported.     

Dialogue and Challenge: Involving Service Users and Carers in Small Group Learning with Social Work and Nursing Students

This paper examines the rationale for service user and carer involvement in professional education and reflects on an initiative in which social work and nursing students undertook a sequence of joint learning in relation to mental health theory and practice. Central to this initiative was the promotion of opportunities for dialogue, both between students from different professional disciplines and between students, service users and carers. To enable this, much of the learning took place in small groups facilitated by either a service user or a carer.

Evaluation of this initiative indicated that, for the majority of social work and nursing students, learning from this shared experience had a major impact on their professional development. However, a small but significant minority found it hard to enter into a dialogue with others on a basis of equality and a sharing of their human as well as their professional experience. Some students indicated that they would have preferred a focus on acquiring more specialist professional knowledge and skills. This raises important issues in relation to the changing expectations of professionalism and professional education—and what really makes someone ‘fit for practice’.     

The Fount of All Knowledge: Training Required to Involve Service Users and Carers in Health and Social Care Education and Training

A modified Delphi study was carried out in order to obtain consensus regarding the content of a university training course to involve service users and carers at all stages of the health and social care educational process within a higher education environment. Telephone interviews were carried out with service users and carers, educationalists and leaders in the field of service user and carer involvement to generate curriculum ideas. A questionnaire was developed from their responses and sent to a purposive sample of 65 people (24 service users and carers, 28 health and social care educationalists and 13 leaders in the field of service user and carer involvement). Fifty‐five statements were generated with consensus being reached on 46 (84%) statements. Mismatches between service users and carers, educationalists and leaders in the field were explored. Key themes to be included in the curriculum were identified. This paper demonstrates that the best training is not imposed upon service users and carers by academics or others who think they know best; rather, that service users and carers themselves can play a leading role in identifying their training needs and devising strategies to ensure these needs are effectively met.     

Promises and Pitfalls: Involving Service Users and Carers in Social Work Manager Education

Partnership working occupies an increasing amount of social work managers' time and budget, requiring skills and abilities not always developed previously within social work programmes. Much discussion around partnership working centres on building collaborative inter-agency and inter-professional relationships with less emphasis on the need to ensure good working relationships with service users and carers, despite their being the ultimate recipients of the process. This article explores efforts to develop a focus on service users and carers within a module for social work managers as part of post-qualifying (PQ) social work education. It documents a process where, initially, service users and carers provided personal testimonies of being recipients of services and then subsequently occupied more authoritative roles within teaching, to the current position when they are again less actively involved.

In describing these developments it explores possible reasons why involving service users and carers within this module has proved challenging. The article acknowledges that there is relatively limited literature about the involvement of service users and carers in PQ education. It suggests that lessons learned from involving service users and carers in qualifying social work training cannot directly be transposed to the post-qualifying context.     

A menu for learning: a World Café approach for user involvement and inter-professional learning on mental health

Inter-professional learning (IPL) initiatives and service user involvement are well established in professional education programmes, but are seldom incorporated in the same teaching and learning project. In order to accomplish a combination of these approaches, an interactive learning format, styled as a World Café on mental health, was chosen to bring social work and mental health nursing students together with service users and carers. The project aimed to be participatory and inclusive from the outset, establishing a steering group with staff, students and user/carer volunteers to plan the day-long event. The event enabled all participants to engage in round table conversations to learn from each other's outlooks and roles, and for students to reflect on their future inter-professional practice and engagement with service users. Findings from this project indicate that the World Café as a teaching and learning method may have much to offer students engaged in IPL activities. We believe that the findings from this project can contribute to the advancement of existing knowledge regarding IPL and user involvement, and that a World Café approach may serve as a template for replication for other education providers, as part of a wider repertoire of inter-professional and service user involvement initiatives.