Articles and useful reading

Two articles by Peter Beresford on service user participation were published recently. The first one is from the Guardian: The second...

Les entretiens de la Chaire de Travail social et d’intervention sociale Participation et citoyenneté : réunion de chantiers Mardi 19 juin 2018 9 h - 18 h Cnam, 292 rue Saint Martin, 75003 Paris, amphi Prouvé, accès 11 entrée libre, mais inscription obligatoire :...

By: Elizabeth C. Watters, Cheryl-Ann Cait, Funke Oba This paper presents the findings from Community focus groups, comprised of social service users, and explores the characteristics of effective social workers. Focus groups were conducted as part of a case study to...

Hubert Kaszyński, Katarzyna Ornacka, Olga Maciejewska Jagiellonian University in Kraków Abstract: Presented herein are the results of the first Polish research study promoting mental health in student groups and applying it in social work education. This project was...

The European Social Fund provides 3,5 million SEK in funding for researchers at the School of Social Work to participate in a joint EU-project with Belgian and Dutch colleagues as well as service user representatives. The project will examine and disseminate best...

Ole Petter Askheim - Department of Health and Social Work, Lillehammer University College, Lillehammer, Norway Peter Beresford  - Department of Health and Human Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, UK; Department of Clinical Sciences, Brunel Cecilia Heule -...

Watch the movie “We are Shaping Our Lives” from Shaping our lives

Førstelektorstipendiat Liv Altmann tar i uke 5 og 6 turen til Plymouth University for å opplee universitetets brukerinvolvering i høgere utdanning i praksis. Ved å følge undervisningen og veiledningen gitt av serviceuseres and careers håper Liv å la seg inspirere til...

PowerUs is a partner planning for the EASSW conference in Paris, summer of 2017. You can read more about the conference here: http://www.eassw.org

PowerUs member Peter Beresford has published a highly relevant, non profit book called “All Our Welfare”. Please order it as it gives important directions for social work and social policy. Read more and order here >>>

Located near Stuttgart in the south of Germany, Esslingen University of Applied Sciences offers a bachelor’s degree course (7 semesters, 210 ECTS) as well as a masters’ degree course (3 semesters, 90 ECTS) in social work with an intake of 93 students per semester in...

Besides all the positive aspects discussed above, we are aware that the work done on service user involvement in our department is only a starting point: coming back to the qualification framework of social work introduced above, there are a large number of areas for...

All the activities reported so far were carefully evaluated using different methodological approaches. After two one-year user involvement seminars with a total of 26 students and more than 30 service users in the course of the Esslingen BA Social Work curriculum, our...

The conceptualisation of SUI seminar I was done collaboratively between the two lecturers (the authors of this text Marion Laging and Thomas Heidenreich) and the student group of 8 students using input from professionals (a platform called “regional practice”) and...

Across Europe, different service user groups have already been included in SUI seminars (e.g. users of mental health services, people who grew up in care). Initially, we had no constraints as to which service users to include in our seminar. Rather, we chose a...

Besides all the positive aspects discussed above, we are aware that the work done on service user involvement in our department is only a starting point: coming back to the qualification framework of social work introduced above, there are a large number of areas for...

Two project seminars (one of which started in March 2014, the other in March 2015) had been conducted. Both of these project seminars organized SUI seminars. The first group of eight students decided to start working on the SUI idea (project seminar I) in March 2014....

Located near Stuttgart in the south of Germany, Esslingen University of Applied Sciences offers a bachelor’s degree course (7 semesters, 210 ECTS) as well as a masters’ degree course (3 semesters, 90 ECTS) in social work with an intake of 93 students per semester in...

All the activities reported so far were carefully evaluated using different methodological approaches. After two one-year user involvement seminars with a total of 26 students and more than 30 service users in the course of the Esslingen BA Social Work curriculum, our...

The conceptualisation of SUI seminar I was done collaboratively between the two lecturers (the authors of this text Marion Laging and Thomas Heidenreich) and the student group of 8 students using input from professionals (a platform called “regional practice”) and...

Service user perspective in social work education in Germany Generally the degree program of Social Work at a university of applied sciences in Germany enables the students to work in practice. Therefore, encounters with service users are systematically implemented in...

Two project seminars (one of which started in March 2014, the other in March 2015) had been conducted. Both of these project seminars organized SUI seminars. The first group of eight students decided to start working on the SUI idea (project seminar I) in March 2014....

Two project seminars (one of which started in March 2014, the other in March 2015) had been conducted. Both of these project seminars organized SUI seminars. The first group of eight students decided to start working on the SUI idea (project seminar I) in March 2014....

Social work as an academic discipline has – at least compared to other disciplines – a relatively short history in Germany (Kuhlmann 2013). After their early history as colleges without university status, schools of social work underwent a process of professional...

An important project in Norway is the so-called HUSK-project. In the years 2006-2011 the Norwegian Directorate of Health and Social Affairs provided funds to establish a university research program for selected municipal social service offices (The Norwegian...

The Housing First Project: Researchers at the School of Social Work are trying to encourage a change in the Swedish homlessness practice and policy. They want to get away from the system of subsistute housing in favour of real housing. Both people who are presently...

by Shaping Our Lives on behalf of the Health and Care Professions Council Report authors: Becki Meakin Joanna Matthews Read the article here >>>

Collapsed Parenthood – Disqualified Mothers, Lost Fathers, and Children’s Rights to Their Parents Read the new report done by and about Swedish parents who have had their children placed in foster care. Read it in english >> Från insidan av ett havererat...

There are weak traditions for involving users in the social work and social education courses. Traditionally people with user experiences are used in single lectures; otherwise the students mainly meet them as clients in their practice placements. Since 2009 the...

Abstract: Even though empowerment and involvement of users have, for a long time, been important goals for educational programmes in social work, these programmes have only to a very little extent availed themselves of the resources that people with user experiences...

Rainbow Quality System (RQS) is a quality assurance system for user-driven organizations engaged in rehabilitation for people with drug problems. RQS is build on a partnership between academic and service user organisations. It has been developed in Rainbow Sweden in...

Summary Many new ideas about the proper way to educate social workers have been introduced over the recent decades, not only by the profession itself and the social work research but also by employers and educational institutions. In this article we argue that it is...

Foreword The participation of service users, patients, families and carers has been one of the most significant developments in professional education for health and social work over the past decade. The active contribution of people who are ‘experts by experience’ in...

Forewords by the partners to this project Carers UK Social workers have the potential to transform carers’ lives, to support and listen to them, and to give them the tools to have a life of their own alongside their caring role. Ensuring that from the start of their...