This project globally aims at promoting a more inclusive training model for social workers within the European Union. “Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people (definition of social work approved by the general Assembly of the IASSW in 2014). This definition can also apply to future social workers, during their education time. Indeed, future social workers' education is based on an alternation of theory and practice and seems to be particularly prone to innovations facilitating social inclusion, and this for the following reasons : - As a result of their close relationship with professionals of the field and research activity, training institutions for social work represent real laboratories to experiment innovative practices. These institutions already deal with the topic of service users’ participation at the European level. - Innovative practices implemented in social workers' education have large and long-term consequences on social issues. In effect, actions taken with various groups have a major impact in terms of their social inclusion, including those involving future students. Even if an international definition of social work exists (see above), social work refers to a wide range of practices and theoretical backgrounds at a European level. Social workers’ education is also specific to each country, although it is being harmonised as part of the Bologna process. However, educational institutions that train social workers within the EU are facing common issues, particularly those related to service users’ participation within their training curriculum.By service users, we mean people who are using, who want to use, or who have used services or facilities in the social sector (for instance : people who live in residences, people with disabilities, migrant people, etc.…). The challenge is about taking into account their knowledge, based on their experience of social vulnerability and social services and include it in social workers’ training programmes. The potential benefits of such an approach are identified : - For students : They gain better knowledge and understanding of social issues from the service users’ perspective and thus, transform their own representations of these service users. - For service users : Opportunity to take a step back from their experience, acknowledgement of their expertise, new skills. All partners in this project educate/train future social workers in 3 different EU countries. They have already experimented programmes including service users’ participation. Thanks to these experiences, they have identified the benefits (see above) and some limits to these new developments. The most common being that : - Up until now, many such initiatives remain quite isolated, individually based and their sustainability is therefore not guaranteed. - Most of these initiatives are currently based on service users’ testimonies, which remains quite a narrow approach to participation. - Participation is still considered as a one-way process, reflected in the idea that service users are generally invited to take part in the students’ educational programs and still very rarely the other way round. When students have the opportunity to take part in activities beyond the walls of their educational institutions, participation is still very rarely mentioned. In order to lift these constraints, this project aims at : - Improving knowledge and visibility on the current experiments developed in the three partner countries (France, Sweden, Belgium) in order to spread them around other educational institutions; - Extending and diversify the pedagogical approaches related to service users’ participation in the education of future social workers, by enhancing teachers’ expertise and developing new learning tools ; - Considering participation as a permanent educational process, including field experiences when students explore service users’ environments. This project aims at designing 3 intellectual outputs intended for social work teachers and social work students, in order to support service users' involvement in social workers' education : 1. Mapping of experiences on services users' participation 2. Creation of a Service users’ participation toolkit 3. Designing of a training scheme : European week on participation
The main objective, through exchanges and cooperations with partner institutions (educators, service users, professionals and students) was to facilitate sertvice users' ("Experts by experience") participation and contribution within social work educational programmes. We wanted to offer concrete tools, resources and practical examples in order to facilitate, step by step, the development of this pedagogical approach within European H.E.I. training future social workers.
We applied for this project to further develop and give visibility to the involvement of Service Users (SU)/Experts by Experience (EBE) in Social work educational programmes around Europe. More specifically, starting from different backgrounds, we applied to develop concepts and tools able to support social work educators in implementing (from the beginning), or in further improving, this involvement in their curriculum. The involvement of EBE/SU through their experiential knowledge facilitates the creation of a more inclusive model of education with several benefits for future social workers, but also for the educators, educational programmes and for service users. We addressed, from a practical viewpoint, the need of educators to be inspired and supported by concrete concepts and tools to start or to enhance the involvement of EBE/SU in social work education activities.