Output 1

The primary aim of this report is to summarize and reflect on the overall results of the first steps in the three-year project “Innovation by supporting reflexivity and participation: Strengthening education and professionalization of social work on the border of other professions” funded by the Erasmus+ Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices program, 2020-2023. Five European universities are partners in the project: UNIVERZITA KARLOVA (Czech Republic, project leader), UNIVERSITEIT GENT (Belgium), HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO (Finland), UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN (Ireland) and Cooperativa de Ensino Superior de Serviço Social (Portugal). 

This report concludes by presenting a framework for analyzing and reflecting upon modes of user participation in social work in a comparative perspective, which aims at providing a tool to be utilized by students and teachers when working on issues regarding user participation in social work.  

The project has its background in the assumption that social workers have an important role as professional partners of disadvantaged, aging, and health-challenged people who are at risk of not having a strong enough voice and position as citizens in society’. The project has as an objective to ‘bridge skill gaps and develop capacity in participatory and inclusive approaches and collaborative reflexive skills among social and health work students and teachers by developing new learning and teaching tools. The project will use a partnership approach to explore and critically assess the way in which the different histories and social-political backgrounds of five different countries contribute to our understanding of these important areas of social work policy, practice and education (Lorenz, Havrdova & Matousek, eds. 2020). 

The first step in our project was to conduct a national and European journals analysis. The aim was to provide insights in the similarities and differences among the participating countries and to establish the groundwork for developing the methodology in the following four project outputs. These future outputs would explore and design the types of skills and competencies that were important for reflexive decision making taking by social workers when engaging with service users and other stakeholders.  In doing so the project team aims to appraise a variety of approaches that can be best used to delivery participatory interventions and partnerships, leading to a practice guide, among social work and health care students and the area of curriculum development. The ‘the overall objectives of the journal analysis was to identify and learn about the changing nature of the participative social work research in the participating countries with regard to their different history, culture and social and health care systems and to examine the benefits and challenges affiliated with the different ways of conducting the participatory research, such as engaging with the research participants/clients and employing collaborative reflexivity in solving complex social problems in the community.’

The comparative journal analysis was viewed to be constructive and innovative, particularly because the project countries, and their welfare regimes, represent diverse cultural and historical traditions in Europe, including East-West and North-South dimensions (Eikemo et al., 2007) with different participative approaches in the policy and social and health care systems in the respective countries. Such an analysis could contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature of participatory approaches in social and health care.