Mending the Gap - Demonstrating the impact of being partners in knowledge

The Open University and PowerUs warmly invite you to a one day conference to learn about  ‘Gap Mending’. The purpose of this conference is to share the approach with a wider audience of statutory, voluntary and third sector social care and HEI organisations so that they can understand the principles behind the ‘Mend the Gap’ approach and think how it can be employed within their organisation. Learning will be shared by members of the North East Social Work Alliance (NESWA) Teaching Partnership which established  ‘mend the gap’ as a co-production model for social work education in the North East. Information will be given as what is needed by an organisation to apply a gap-mending approach, how to organise a gap-mending project, as well as evaluate success achieved.

We will be joined by key speakers that include:

Peter Beresford, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy
Essex University/ Chair of Shaping Our Lives/UK Chair PowerUs.

Cecilia Heule, Senior Lecturer
Lund University Sweden/co-founder and International Co-ordinator PowerUs www.powerUs.eu

Professor Lord Patel, Chair of Social Work England

The conference presents an exciting opportunity to understand how we can mend the gaps between us in social work practice and other professional contexts. Service users, students, practitioners, researchers and educators will share their experiences of how the mend the gap approach has been imaginatively applied and the outcomes that have come from it. 

Conference cost £75.00 for waged professionals, free to service users, carers and students.

The closing date for registration is 1 April 2019. Please note places are limited, so please register your interest as soon as possible.

If you have any questions regarding the conference, please contact either:

Helen Casey (Helen.Casey@open.ac.uk)  or

Jenny Simpson (Jenny.Simpson@open.ac.uk)