Curriculum development

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.

This paper provides an account of one university's experience of involving service users and carers in the delivery of the new undergraduate and postgraduate social work degrees. It poses the question as to whether user and carer involvement in social work education can be viewed as a means of promoting citizen participation or whether it is a case of manipulating relatively powerless groups. In addressing this question, service users and carers and social work tutors describe, from their own distinct perspectives, the processes in which they were both involved.

Involving service users and carers in the education and training of social workers is higher on the agenda in developed countries than ever before. Higher education institutions that run these programmes are required to involve service users and carers at all levels of the design and delivery of the programmes. The experiences of user involvement in social work education in the countries of transition, such as Macedonia, are however lacking.