Research

One of the members of the service user and carers group in England, Raj Mehta has become the co-chair of the Participatory Research Group led by Dr Helen Casey who is a leading academic on ‘Mending the Gap’.

Raj is also the new editor of the webpage, meeting monthly to update or refresh the news.

Residential Weekend for Postgraduate students to be held at Milton Keynes’ campus in February

Following the success of the return to an in-person induction course for new students last year, there will be 6 service users and carer reps at the event next month. They will make a couple of presentations plus engage in role plays so students can practice their communication skills. Students find this beneficial and it reinforces from the outset the importance of service user and carer feedback essential to good social work practice. This is a great example of experiential learning from self-advocates.

Admissions/ Student recruitment

Over 200 students were interviewed in 2023 for our 3 social work programmes. There were 56 panels all of which had a service user or carer rep on the interview panel. This is a great achievement and ensures that the end user voice and experience is included in the selection of social work students. Applications for 2024 open in March and we hope to repeat this across our selection process to ensure equal opportunities and widen access criteria.

Module production

Following on from the successful inclusion of service users and carers in the rewriting of K123 which is the first-year foundation module for social work students, we are rewriting the 2 placement modules K246 and the current K315. These will be fully co-produced with 2 representatives on board with payment made from the agreed module budget. Other service users or carers can be involved as ‘critical readers’, reviewing early drafts to ensure quality and consistency across our social work education programme.

Writing in Social Work or WISP

As part of Social Work week in March, members of the group will be presenting their findings to a wider audience. This is part of an ongoing commitment to raising the profile and use lived experience to add value and reflection.