Towards Overcoming Barriers:

1

• Towards Overcoming Barriers
• evaluating the impact of involving
• users and carers in a
• BA social work programme
• Shula Ramon, s.ramon_at_anglia.ac.uk
• Joanna Fox, j.r.fox_at_anglia.ac.uk
• Roxana Anghel, r.anghel_at_anglia.ac.uk
• JSWEC 2006, Cambridge

2

• Values and Conceptual Underpinnings of
• User and Carer Involvement
• in Social Work Education
• Shula Ramon

3
Such an involvement meets the wish to maintain
the values of

• Respect for people
• Social Inclusion
• Genuine Partnership
• Empowerment
• Strive for Equality and maintaining an
  anti-discriminatory stance

4
Reflecting the Values in the BA in Social Work

• Valuing the specific type of knowledge users and
  carers have (experiential, subjective, based on
  being at the receiving end of social work)
• Ensuring users and carers perspectives are
  represented on the programme, side by side with
  professional perspectives
• Preference for users and carers views to be
  presented by themselves, as part of the strive
  for a genuine partnership, social inclusion, and
  empowerment.

5
Conceptual models underpinning user and carer
involvement

• The Strengths Approach (Saleeby, 1992 Rapp,
  1998)
• Based on the assumption that users have strengths
  and not only weaknesses
• The move from a deficit model of users to a
  strengths perspective has considerable
  implications for the whole social work process,
  including assessment, motivation enhancement,
  aims and means of intervention, as well as to
  risk taking.
  

6
Conceptual models continued

• The Social Model of Disability (Campbell and
  Oliver, 1996)
• It argues that disabled people remain disabled
  because society is not ready to remove the
  visible and less visible barriers to their
  involvement and contribution to our everyday
  life
• They may need specific types of support, but have
  many qualities which are of value to the rest of
  us and have the capacity to lead a good quality
  of life with the right support.

7
Conceptual models continued

• The Power (and power relationships) Dimension
• Involvement, equality and genuine partnership are
  predicated on getting the power balance more
  equal than has been the case in traditional
  social work and that of other helping
  professions
• Attention to reducing the power of professionals
  and enhancing that of users and carers is of
  crucial importance
• Genuine, non-tokenistic involvement on social
  work educational programme has also the role of
  modelling to students the possibility of a better
  power balance between social workers, users and
  carers.

8
Specific measures for genuine partnership on our
programme have thus included

• Appointing users to co-ordinate the involvement
  element of the programme
• Contributing to the teaching on all modules as
  guest speakers and consultants on the IBL module
• Participation in our programme advisory groups
  (PAGs)
• Future steps participation in modules revision
  full participation on the management board

9

• Labels
• Joanna Fox

10
What does a label of schizophrenia mean to you as
a practising social worker?

• Some concerns over personal safety
• Concerned not to upset them
• A sense of fear
• People like you and me
• Could be anyone on the course
• Negative pictures from the media
• An unseen disability
• Someone who might have a carer

11
What does a label mean to someone with a
disability?

• - NEGATIVE
• Stigma disempowering
• Reinforcement of the medical model
• Something to put a name to an illness
  depersonalise it / disassociate from the self
• POSITIVE
• I can achieve despite
• This is one reason why I feel / experience
• Can you understand some of my experiences?

12
Labels in mental health

• Walker (2006) p. 6
• When we are talking about a persons thoughts
  and feelings we are essentially talking about
  their identity (which includes values, beliefs,
  memories, fears, and desires).  This is not like
  something physically wrong with part of their
  body.  A disorder of thought or feeling is a
  labeling of a persons identity.  The labeling of
  subjective experience feeds on itself and
  perpetuates itself
• Walker, M.T.  (2006). The Social Construction of
  Mental Illness and its Implications for the
   Recovery Model.   International Journal of
  Psychosocial Rehabilitation.  10 (1), 71-87

13
What do we want social workers to understand from
service users and carers?

• Learning together
• A sense of learning from each other
• A resource of knowledge and experience
• A strengths model not a deficit model
• To offer agreed support to enable them have
  greater control over their lives
• Resulting in
• A new power balance
• A new sense of respect
• A real understanding of the social model of
  disability
• Help service users and carers to prevent and
  manage risk to self mainly, and - though rarely -
  also to others.

14

• Evaluation
• of a project implementing
• User and Carer Involvement
• in Social Work Education
• Roxana Anghel

15
Research alongside the User Carer Involvement
Project at ARU

• Two-year one-cycle action research 2003-2005
• Aimed to
• collect the stakeholders views on the
  appropriateness of the projects format, its
  impact, and their suggestions for change
• Involve all project stakeholders in developing
  the project structure, content, and format
• Undertaken by ARU researcher who initially was
  not an insider to the project
• Participants students, service users and carers
  consultants in various capacities, BA staff, and
  practice teachers
• Variety of instruments of data collection

16
Findings

• Students
• Feedback mostly positive, helped them empathise
  listen see users as human beings become aware
  of impact of social work on peoples lives
  survivors not victims theory-practice
  relationship
• Suggestions a more balanced account from some
  consultants group discussions in second semester
  for revisiting and internalising the knowledge
• BA staff
• Feedback mostly positive found added value in
  consultant's input on aspects of social work
  real life dimension, human perspective
  counteracts stereotypes early introduction to
  complexity cultural change that needs time and
  effort committed to involvement
• Suggestions wider user group better
  preparation improved planning

17
Findings - continued

• Consultants
• Feedback mostly positive contribution to
  positive change of future social work practice
  a great opportunity a privilege a right as
  a user I have something to give
• Suggestions better briefing and debriefing
  better access, time allocation and attendance
  mediating the dialogue consultant-students
• Messages to students be human passionate for
  the job emphatic good listener open minded
  considerate and respectful
• Practice Teachers
• Feedback difficult to implement requirements due
  to lack of policy and training little
  involvement in student selection some informal
  involvement in final assessment no particular
  techniques or tools
• Suggestions protocol, guidance unified format
  of student assessment across universities
  increased support from university

18
The change generated by the findings

• Systematically planned involvement covering all
  BA full-time modules
• Guidelines for staff for preparation and
  debriefing of UCI consultants and students
  (Protocol document)
• More information and support to staff towards
  including the involvement of users and carers
  centrally within the culture of the social work
  degree
• Training offered to UCI consultants with a view
  to increase their confidence in participating in
  teaching
• Ongoing support and close collaboration between
  the UCI coordinator and staff and consultants

19
The change generated by the findings - continued

• Informal and egalitarian structure to the PAG
  meetings
• Ensure language is accessible
• More reflection time for students on the messages
  and the relevance of the input by the consultants
  to their learning objectives
• Wider range of users and carers involved

20
Further action planned following stakeholder
feedback

• Closer collaboration with practice teachers,
  their involvement being essential to ensure that
• the knowledge accumulated from the UCI
  consultants during modules and IBL is
  successfully transferred into practice
• students can witness examples of involvement of
  users and carers within social care services
• Open a dialogue with services offering placements
  for collaboration towards helping students learn
  in practice about user and carer involvement