User and carer involvement in social work education: reasons for participation

Abstract

In many countries, user involvement in social work (SW) education is common practice, while in other countries, initiatives for inclusion are currently expanding. No matter how far the progress of user involvement in education has come, issues on clarity, sustainability and accountability need to be addressed. In this paper, users’ reasons for wanting to participate in SW education and the way they define their potential contribution are explored. These experiences can provide important information contributing to sustainable, meaningful, and accountable collaborations between users, university staff and students. Participants (n = 33) answered a questionnaire including demographic data and four open-ended questions about their expectations of participation in a SW programme at the University of Dalarna in Sweden. The results from the open-ended questions were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results show that users’ main reasons for wanting to get involved were to contribute through sharing their lived experience of SW education, to help improve services and also to obtain respect for their own personal knowledge and experience. The respondents described themselves both as carriers of valuable knowledge and as accountable experts on the subject.