Relationships with User and Carer Groups

“Sharing knowledge and ideas, using network processes, between the community based expertise of service users and carers groups and those involved in training social workers, appears a helpful approach.”

—Ager, Gee and Dow, 2005

Findings from Local Research

The suggestion was made by some service users and carers that an effective way for students to learn from them would be for the students to visit established user and carer groups.

Top Tip: Build a Long-Term Relationship with User and Carer Groups:

• Long-term relationships with user and carer groups provide the best foundation for effective engagement
• They can provide opportunities for practice learning and research collaborations
• They should benefit the user and carer groups too, perhaps through input into management committees or new alliances
• Don’t forget the potential of technology for keeping people in touch. Newsletters (which can be on tape), photos of events which have taken place, email and bulletin boards (for some people) can help maintain contacts. A teleconference might be useful for carers whose time is precious

Messages from Wider Research

Diversity matters! Ensuring that the individuals and groups involved represent a wide range of experiences will complement learning about diversity and equality.

• Users and carers are a diverse group
• Carers bring different perspectives from people who use services (Manthorpe, 2000)
• Use a broad range of organisations, e.g. housing association, advocacy groups, drug and alcohol teams, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups
• It is appropriate that people contributing to the course exemplify different experiences of marginalisation and different perspectives on equality (Doel et al, p. 225)

Good Practice Examples

The Glasgow School of Social Work has a Service User and Carer Network who meet on a six weekly basis. Staff are invited to attend all meetings and specific staff are invited along to meetings to discuss particular issues for which they are responsible or in which they have a particular interest. The remit of the network is to influence all aspects of social work education within the School. The network has the following aims and objectives:

• Establish relationships between service users, carers, students and staff
• Enable service users and carers to develop confidence to speak out
• Find a way to enable service users and carers to influence the training of social workers. This is likely to involve planning, preparation, delivery, evaluation and recruitment
• Shaping future continuing professional development of trained social workers and managers

The network organises an annual marketplace event. This involves inviting various organisations to host stalls at which they can advertise their services and the issues facing the service users and/or carers that they work with. In addition members of the network facilitate workshops on various issues. The target audience for this event comprises first year students on both the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. This is their first taster of service user and carer involvement and the event is very popular. It is also a good way for the network to recruit new members.

The University of Edinburgh had a specific post, in conjunction with Learning Network South East, to support service user and carer involvement.

The Robert Gordon University adopted a staged approach to the involvement of carers in its social work degree programme. In order to reach carers it started by contacting organisations that had experience of involvement and then broadened out to engage with a wide range of carer groups. Early in the process a “Carer’s Voice Booklet” was developed as a first step of including carer perspectives in the course. A structure of cluster groups was put in place to enable a carer to provide their specific expertise to particular parts of the course; this demonstrated respect for carers’ time commitments. More volunteers came on board gradually and good relationships were built between them and academic staff. On this basis involvement was developed in different aspects of the programme including course design, delivery and assessment.

Glasgow Caledonian University organised a conference for carers in January 2009 at which the Minster for Public Health heard stories from carers. This one of many different ways that the university is working with carers.

Action

Review the contacts of staff and the institution with local groups. Consider holding an event to explain to local groups how they could get involved with the university. Use the voluntary sector to contact a wide range of groups.

Further Information

Ager W., Dow, J., and Gee, M. (2005) Grassroots networks: a model for promoting the influence of service users and carers in social work
education. Social Work Education, 24(4):467-476.

Bruce, L. (2005) Developing Carer Involvement in Social Work Education. Robert Gordon University.

Doel M., Deacon L. and Sawdon C. (2007) Curtain down on Act One: practice learning in the first year of the new social work award. Social Work Education, 26 (3):217-232.

Manthorpe J. (2000) Developing carers’ contributions to social work training. Social Work Education, 19 (1):19-27.